Skull Collectors: Race, Pseudoscience, and Native American Bodies

Bodies #3 of 4. In 1996, two college students stumbled upon some skeletal remains in the Columbia River in Washington. The body, it turns out, was the oldest ever found in North America. In order to understand the story and controversy of the Kennewick Man, also known as The Ancient One, we need to go way back to the ethnographers, anthropologists, and archaeologists of the 19th century. These men sought to unlock the mysteries of race by collecting skulls and bones they could measure and examine, and ultimately, they constructed a theory of race that confirmed their own racist world views, one which we still use today. Find show notes and episode transcripts here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices