Video Transcripts
Clovis Boy
Danish scientist Eske Willerslev, Dsc: 00:30-01:48 The Anzick skeleton is the oldest skeleton in the Americas and the only skeleton found together with Clovis tools that are the first clear evidence of peoples in the Americas. So although Clovis artifacts were found all over North America, there’s actually only one skeleton, one human remain, that has been associated with these artifacts. And, you know, the question of who were these peoples that were creating the Clovis technology is one of the key questions in American archaeology, and there’s been many different suggestions. Some have suggested it’s European ancestry - peoples crossing the Atlantic, getting into North America and establishing the Clovis technology and then later on being replaced by Native Americans ancestors. Others have suggested that it’s Melanesians, it’s other Asian people not related to Native Americans. And here we find that the Clovis group, or the Anzick group around Montana, is actually directly ancestral to most Native Americans of today in both North America and South America, and so it established Native American ancestors as being the first peoples that settled the Americas. 02:19-3:17 Historically, there’s been a lot of tension between scientists and many Native American groups, and obviously I was very nervous when I was approaching the different Native American tribes in Montana, but they treated me extremely well. They showed a lot of interest in the story, I think, and, but all of them said that now is the time for the skeleton to go back into the ground. And obviously this was a hard blow because, being a scientist, reburying probably the most important skeleton in the history of the Americas, it’s hard. But I think, I realized, that if scientists and Native Americans want to pursue their paths together, there needs to be compromises from both sides and therefore we have to respect that they feel very strongly about these issues. |
Prehistoric Connections
Crow Tribe Member Shane Doyle, Ed.D: 00:13-00:23 You know the message that these people sent was so clear, you know their love for this child was just as great as we could imagine. 00:33-01:00 Well when I was asked to go to the Anzick site, I didn't know what to expect that day - I hadn't met Eske yet, I didn't know what his research findings were. I didn't really know who all was going to be there. You know it was really kind of an open-ended question for me going in there so I brought my drum because I knew that it was a sacred place that had been disturbed and the ground needed to be healed. 01:03-02:10 The significance of the Anzick boy is hard to overstate. I mean it’s significant in the scientific community, it’s significant to tribal communities, me personally, it’s significant because of the way he was buried with those 118 priceless objects. You know the man hours that went into creating those points probably go into the hundreds, thousands of man-hours, and for them to bury all those items with that little boy who was a two year-old, who wasn't a chief, who wasn't a medicine man, who was really not a significant cultural influence (he was a baby), you know the significance of that to me just shows how much the tribal people have always loved their children. It’s just very apparent; it's one of our values and it’s survived all these years. It’s just a story of incredible beauty, and so that to me is the real significance of the story, and kind of almost overshadows really the scientific discovery there, because of the humanness and the profound love that we also discovered with that boy. |