I published last week an extract from my book Strange Fruit which looked at the ‘Kennewick Man’ controversy and at what that controversy told us about contemporary ideas about cultural identity and cultural ownership. The Kennewick Man debate gets also to the heart of another major contemporary controversy: that over the meaning of ‘race’. In this extract from Strange Fruit, I look at how discussions about a 9000-year old skeleton laid bare our  understanding (and misunderstanding) of race. My own […]

Categories: Race & Immigration, Science & Technology • Tags: anthropology, craniometry, earnest hooton. ainu, human origins, kennewick man, native americans, race, racial categories, racial science