No Bone Unturned: The Adventures of a Top Smithsonian Forensic Scientist and the Legal Battle for America’s Oldest Skeletons
Justin Miller Award Recipient
Stephen T. Smith
Justin Miller Award Category
Intellectual Curiosity
Justin Miller Award Date
2003
Description
The story of the Smithsonian’s brilliant forensic anthropologist and the 9,000-year-old skeleton that sparked his landmark lawsuit against the U.S. government.
When he is not studying ancient skeletons, Doug Owsley is enlisted by the State Department and the FBI to identify remains. He has worked on some of the most notorious tragedies in recent history—Bosnia, Waco, 9/11 and Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims among them. When an anthropologist in Kennewick, WA, calls Owsley to help study a 9,000 year-old caucasoid skeleton, he gets caught up in a battle against the Justice Department and Indian tribes who claim the skeleton is Native American and should be buried and not analyzed.
Owsley, backed by scientists worldwide, files suit against the government and is now at the forefront of a landmark case—currently pending a ruling in the U.S. District Court—that may alter repatriation laws and have a significant impact on the classic views of Native Americans, migration patterns, and anthropology, as well as our understanding of prehistory.
Publisher
HarperCollins
Publication Date
2003
ISBN
9780060199234