A span of time so profound that it turned every assumption about this discovery upside down.

This was not a pioneer.

This was not a historical figure in any conventional sense.

This was one of the oldest complete human skeletons ever found in North America.

And what Chatters had said about the skull — those words about European features, those words he had used before he knew the true age of the remains — were already beginning to spread.

SECTION 3: WHO KENNEWICK MAN WAS — AND WHY SCIENTISTS WERE SHOCKED

Let’s set aside, for a moment, the controversy that was about to erupt.

Let’s look at what the bones themselves told us about the man who lay beside the Columbia River.

He was male.

Scientists determined this from the shape of his pelvis, the size of his skull, and the overall robustness of his skeleton — all standard indicators of biological sex in skeletal analysis.