They used the most advanced techniques available at the time: detailed morphometric analysis, isotopic chemistry, forensic reconstruction of physical appearance, three-dimensional scanning and modeling.

The morphometric analysis — the systematic measurement and comparison of the skull’s shape against a database of skulls from populations around the world — confirmed what Chatters had observed a decade earlier.

The Kennewick skull did not cluster statistically with modern Native American populations.

When fed into the computer programs anthropologists use to estimate ancestry from skull shape, it consistently returned results pointing toward Asian populations — specifically, toward groups like the Ainu of Japan and Polynesian populations.

This was not the same as saying he was European.

That notion — always a mischaracterization of the original observation — had been thoroughly and repeatedly rejected by serious researchers.

But the finding that his skull didn’t match modern Native American populations was real, and it was supported by careful measurement, not impressionistic observation.

The isotopic analysis confirmed his seafood-heavy diet and suggested he had spent much of his life somewhere with access to ocean resources — likely the Pacific coast.

Some researchers proposed that he might represent evidence of a coastal migration route into the Americas, distinct from the inland Beringian route that was the backbone of the traditional model.

The scientists produced a detailed physical reconstruction of what Kennewick Man might have looked like.