Uncovering the truth about the origins of America’s Indigenous People | Witness Documentary

[Music] [Laughter] [Music] is this the caves up there or those are the caves [Music] uh there's some painting on the wall here yeah can I go with you down there and have a look all I would prefer to to take a look at it along okay is it human yeah yeah it's human hey do you mind that I have a look or just a quick look or yeah come on down okay thanks [Music] amazing so that basically means Denis that this potentially could be the oldest human remains in the in in America I mean potentially it could be no what is it you're doing I'm putting it um in red felt I need to make a phone call here so so who are you calling I'm calling Perry chak to of the clth tribes is that a Native American or he's a tribal leader I need to consult with him about what we're going to do about this hi we've got a problem we've found a tooth in cave number two yeah we I put it in red felt um I've got it uh with sage okay we'll be taking the tooth with us but it's uh um uh it'll be reburied later so but don't you think there's something we could uh tell them that I mean make them interesting in in the DNA result or so maybe we could just take a little piece of of it no yep it uh it definitely uh is a tooth now where this was found did you did you find textiles did you find yeah I think Denny found some textiles that did they found some textiles didn't they we did and they were indicative of the clth modok style yes to me there's your answer you don't have to do uh investigation uh um destructive d testing on this this could if we could show it with DNA it could convince all the scientists that believe and everybody else who believes that that you know that Europeans came in here first for example or that Native Americans hasn't been there so long yeah our people really aren't interested in that we're not interested in in the rest of the world we've lived here for thousands of years and and we're very comfortable knowing in our minds we're not out to prove to the world anything [Music] what what what will happen with that tooth and no I'm going to take it back to where it was found and I'm going to do ceremony on it and I'm going to ask the Creator for forgiveness for it being disturbed no one has the right to disturb the remains of our people D thank you [Music] Dear Professor Esa Willer love my name is Sarah anzik and I'm a molecular biologist from Montana when I was 2 years old some construction workers collecting gravel on my parents land Came Upon an ancient burial site with over 100 Stone artifacts and the partial and fragmentary remains of a small child since it was found on my family's private land the law does not make it subject to rep patriation from the local tribes I'm therefore inviting you to my home in Montana to see the remains and possibly take a sample for further study welcome really nice house huh oh thank you can I get you something to drink uh no no I'm fine I'm where do you have the bones uh they're downstairs uhhuh um so you want to see them now orink just see them right away actually we can earlier tests on the bones found that the skeleton is that of a 5-year-old boy who passed away 12,000 to 13,000 years ago to my knowledge it's the oldest skeleton found in the Americas to dat [Music] [Music] I think the challenge that you're going to face ESI is that you're doing destructive analysis they're chopping up their bones of their ancestors they call them themselves traditionalist but they're really it's identity politics so be careful as long as you're saying what they like to hear they'll be on your side but as soon as you disagree with them once they will cut you off [Music] [Music] he [Music] super fit man super fit is there somebody specific I mean that you know and that you that we could get in touch with of the Native guys yes that would be Shane Doyle what kind of guy is he he's a enrolled Crow member and he's a professor over at Montana State University and the Native American studies [Music] Department hello hello I'm yeah welcome yeah thanks yeah welcome to kro Country thanks so I guess ask you Sarah if you want to discuss your genetic C sure I would say we took a little piece of the of the bone to get a complete genome and and but there's been all these theories about who are clov so there's been archaeologist there's still even archaeologists claiming that the first people coming into Americas were not the ancestors of Na Americans but were some say it's other Asian groups other says it's Europeans have you heard about that okay this proves that Native Americans were the first ones okay and this child here is spot on Native American and basically it seems to be direct ancestor our estimate is about 80 90% of all Native Americans today [Music] [Music] I want to thank you you know for that for what you did and uh you know it's kind of a lot to process you know I I don't know where to start you [Music] know this is kind of south of the black feet West for the crows East for the Salish and then this is kind of Northerly for the shishoni okay it's been over 100 years since the tribes are forcibly removed from here and they've been on the reservations and so we could drive to four different reservations visit the different tribes yes I believe that it's the right thing to do you grew up in the crow reservation how how was it I mean growing up there oh I loved it as a kid it's the greatest thing in the world you know and you have a huge extended family and I just had the greatest childhood but what happens is you hit adolescence for a lot of us I think and uh then the weight of the the depression and the the Despair and all that stuff starts to creep into your Consciousness I think it's incomprehensible when you're American Indian I mean you just it's just too much you can't deconstruct everything you don't have the psychological you don't have the intellectual tools no without knowing the history of tribes and everything that shattered our communities you just think that Indians Were Somehow lesser people because you've been born into a community that is in [Music] [Music] despair my great-grandfather was the head chief his name was little plume mhm and he had had two sons Three Sons with the youngest one raised me till he passed away mhm he was on 50 War raids and his younger brother yellow kidney was on 33 War rids wow and so yellow kidney was gave me my first name when I was a little boy is that right wow and so we have a real close connection to the Buffalo days we would ride horses you know we'd race horses we'd swim we know and hunt and you know we skin animals or whatever you know know when my grandfather died they were trying to get me to boarding school where they had modern playgrounds that there was nothing for me out there and and and I ended up when he died I ended up down there yeah Colonel Pratt's philosophy was to to kill the Indian and cultivate the man and and and we don't think that philosophy has changed my grandfathers died alcohol uncles died of alcohol all the people I was in the Marine Corps with they all dead because of alcohol all the my best friends in boarding school are all gone because of alcohol my son is in a desisted living home my youngest son because his traumatic brain injury because of alcohol my other son who was a former Missoula smoke tempter died of alcohol poisoning and my mother died of curosis and it's all because of the government relations with with my family my great-grandfather was the head Chief at one time so you know if you're asking me if if they should put the bones back um of course yeah yeah they should go back I'm uh 73 years old I'm the oldest uh Su dancer for for this area we lost our Sundance when the US government forbid us yeah to do our religion and then our elders passed away without passing it to the younger generation so without that knowledge our Sundance went away I will tell you the the skeleton is no longer with the spirit Spirit is what I I deal with yeah so with the spirit will get back to the spirit if it's getting back to the site again yeah come back to the site we are all relatives and remember that anytime you see an Indian it's not just an Indian it's a relative to and to the people that own this land I say thank you for allowing us to come here and pay our respects releasing the spirit to go to the other side camp and Beau can you [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh you [Music] if we can get the leadership of the museum to endorse you know the DNA research it will be I'm not too optimistic that um you will get the endorsement that you need have you uh seen this you know the Indian Community is not very happy with uh no I can approach this they see it as a threat to their own position in the country oh yeah and uh as a desecration of of the remains of um the ancient one they call it the kenowick man in the American Indian Community he's the ancient one and they feel very protective about giving him his his rightful rest the uh scientific uh seizure of his remains is extremely distressing to to many people MH it's um another assault of bad science on the American Indian I agree it's bad science this is exactly why we need some you know some DNA research to either confirm or most likely disconfirm right these conclusions based on just skull measurements right I mean this would be the way to do this right it it would be but there are there's there are difficulties there science uh has almost exclusively been used to repress and to have really no benefit for the communities yeah I of course understand your concern but with DNA research you have this uh opportunity to kind of say okay well we will apply state-of-the-art science to question these kind of conclusions which in my view at least is based on first of all very old school SCI but probably also pretty poor science right why do Native people not then say okay let's embrace the newest technology and see if that can help us you know get our ancestors back yeah because Esa it's always the newest technology okay whatever the state-of-the-art science has been has always had a negative impact on Native and indigenous people over you know the past five centuries the so-called scientific study of native people has been used to show their lack of civilization the categorization of people either physically spiritually or mentally to be inferior which then lead to policies of such extreme brutality um on our children like with the boarding schools of this philosophy of kill the Indian SA gave the man the idea about taking of land because people are mentally incompetent I can certainly see where you're coming from there for sure uh I mean it hasn't been good it's it's been genocidal [Music] esap what do you think it would take to break that poor relationship between science and and Native people I mean what what do you think it would take I think it's takes it takes trust and that takes time M and it takes sincerity and proof M do you think I mean if they got kenic back would that help breaking some of the ice I I think it might be a really strong I know it would be a really strong part of the proof ANC turned out to be Native American and it's an older skeleton than kovik so I think there's a higher chance of kenic turning out to be Native American than something else based on that of course I can't be sure if the science supported the tribal position I think that would be a very dramatic and new development and um and you'd be a hero [Music] so yeah so this is the final data now for the kic month it shows you how much uh genetic relatedness if you want it's absolutely no doubt that it's closer to Native American and that it's 100% a Native American it's it's it's it's just Native American are we sure about it yeah yeah I'm 100% sure I mean there's not like knew it you know knew it and that's great news so now I can go down there and tell the tribes [Music] this serious yeah so as you know there has been quite a bit of controversy in regards to the ancestry and affiliation of the kabic man or the ancient one we managed based on 200 milligrams of a bone from the handbone to obtain uh the genome sequence of kenic man we find when we compare to a worldwide panel of contemporary populations that kenic man the ancient one is more closely related to contemporary Native Americans than to any other contemporary populations in the world arm has been fling until a tri over 18 years now we've been working and dealing with Ken man this is truly a big day the scientific proof will be a step for us to repatriate and rebry the Ken man these remains need to be treated in a sacred manner there's no words to express how we feel so on behal of the cille tribe thank you thank you so much blankets are our highest honor thank you wow oh wow it's touching man we have Reuters New York Times BBC News Washington Post NBC News mystery solv mystery solv no push back at all no push back from the scientific Community the fight over the 8,400 year old skeleton is finally over before he left office President Barack Obama signed legislation that gave the bones to five Columbia Plateau tribes President Obama signature Ken wmah will get a secret Native American burial sometime this month people said well this is a European and we sequenced The genome I mean the chance of finding a direct ancestor is basically zero it was a really major undertaking in the fight between the indigenous populations and scientists and it turned out to be genetically 100% Native American thank you very much for ATT in thank you okay okay that's good okay good good you reap the benefits of the controversy over kenowick man you reap the benefits of the scientific findings we're taking the consequences of the scientific findings got kned by the queen of Denmark guess what right now you're riding a wave of political correctness but at some point that wave is going to crash on the shore [Laughter] [Music] so welcome to our department uh our group is working a lot with early people in of the Americas it would be amazing if we found a Native American connection wow there must be somewhere the ancestors of Native Americans in Siberia no oh wow wow how many skulls are you measuring like this uh all of them big collection it's big wow they look very well preserved huh has anybody done DNA on any of these okay so it could potentially be I mean these could be related to Native American ancestors right I me very far distance I think very far oh good seeing you how are you it's everything okay good good so your visit connected with Mal side yeah that's the main reason I mean I'm trying to find the ancestors of the first Americans and you know they should be somewhere in Siberia [Music] right Mal oh wow yes and here the task of mammas which was cut cut yeah yeah yeah by humans yeah is there any other s where they have found human material I mean beside malar I mean is there any sites like this but where there's also human remains found I think it's a y site also very close to 30,000 have they found human remains there because I know about the yite but I didn't think yes yes they have human remains what about the indigenous peoples I mean if you talk about Mal Yana remains I mean is is it H you know like is it like in America there's nothing like in America how how is the situation with indigenous people being upset no it's I never heard that somebody says that uh we do something uh bad for them during the Soviet time uh all indigenous people they uh go through the Soviet schools all children were collected from Tundra from forest and bring to the big settlements to the schools so all of them it's they are people who spent at least 10 years in the school and they are Soviets by their soul Yeah by their soul interesting so many of them they are atheists yeah many of them are they don't follow any rules of the ancient tribes of these people do you think you could get me in touch with this Pulu guy you know to provide samples no problems okay he's my good colleague and friend and uh I think he will be very happy to start the collaboration with [Music] [Applause] you hey guys he yeah it's exciting stuff it's crazy what's the carage yeah the coverage is about 1X or something like that that's what I first thought when I saw your data is that wait a minute I Stafford as a northern European Northern Western European have just as much right to these skeletons as the Native Americans doing we're looking at multiple high-profile papers here with mat Jana we can start really uncaring what happened you know where did they come from when did they come and with the Ken McMan return to the tribes right I think other tribes will start engaging with us trying to get their remains back right such as P cave for example but but is I mean so so Kenwick put the Native American in the US 10,000 years ago of course they love that but but they also like that they're actually you know descendants of somebody that came from Asia I mean and you're going to tell them that they're descendants from Proto Europeans will they like that I mean I've never said we would give them what they want to see I've said we're giving them what the data shows ANC has been buried kic man's been buried you know I understand you're interested in looking at Spirit cave that's the best human skeleton in the Americas and as soon as you get done with your work they're going to stick that entire skeleton and probably the clothing on it in the dirt in Nevada hey do you uh do you have the split times on y yet or not yet no it's running but it it takes some time to going to be interesting man but I'm it's there's some good news I mean I'm going to the P Shi really soon and we are not only getting Spirit kman but we get multiple samp you know from that area so kenic has really paid off I mean they're totally un Bo that do they know that you're the guy that's that has put out this Proto European Malta Theory I'm they don't know so far it's only been in the scientific community and a little bit in Danish media so so you're not going to tell them not now I mean that would be bup right underneath you know we are going to samp but I'm I'm flying out you know to to the US but if you get the results right from the split times of just call me on the phone okay okay see you man [Music] [Applause] [Music] bye so we're getting close to [Music] it this is in fact only the second time I have I'm going to go into the cave oh wow mhm only stood at a distance and known and there's an urgency to it you know in bringing our people home we think about you know the financially can our tribe continue this journey and it there was a lot of questions that we had yeah I guess it's also been expensive in in kind of legal fees right to fight for these remains no we have social issues that we can spent our money better on we have other things as with other people you know other tribes and we're a small tribe yeah we wanted to share with you our history our culture because obviously not only myself but other tribal members our tribal leaders see something a little bit different in within you you know and honesty um and I know with your history of your science you know it may change but right now it's we feel that it's um it's tolerable you know there's a little bit of truth that we can at least trust truth and trust is you know is a lot you know sometimes people are coming to our lives for reasons whether we feel it's good or we feel it's bad nonetheless we learn from those people and we feel that you were chosen to walk on a path with us and that's very important to us it [Music] is you don't know what you're dealing with and it's scary for us to think about because um you know some of these some of the remains they're um they're good people some of them are not so good people some of them have uh they're me there are medicine men you know and women and there's powers that they were buried with and you start disturbing that in you know um we have to eventually have to deal with that when we pass on in in in this life into the next we have to answer to them we have to answer to those on the Dust DET Trail they have dust on them they can't continue on their Journey as we would want to and we have to answer and they're they're probably going to ask us you know why were they not good enough to come home and it's not for other people to understand it's not for other people to judge it's not uh up to interpretation but that's our reality that we live in right now we're just going to say a quick prayer for here and it's very simple we pray that the spirits are at rest that they understand that the work is not meant to be harmful we um we pray that nothing follows us from here to All My Relations [Music] an K man from [Music] on it is it only from the tribe people are coming or is it from other places as well you know uh we have people from all over Nevada we have the chairman we have Council we have uh tribal members okay uh thank you very much it's a it's a great honor for me to to be here and uh I'm very pleased that you can say that some of the work we have done with the DNA testing have actually helped help you getting your your ancestors back I know that uh many communities here believe well we have always been here we we came from this land and uh therefore I would say it's also been a little bit difficult for me to to present this data because maybe some of you will not like it but anyways not that long ago we were looking at a skeleton remain 24,000 years old from Lake b car which is H in Siberia and to our great surprise what we saw there genetically is an individual who is Genetically speaking partly Native American and partly European okay and so in other words it's Europeans that give rise to Native Americans and and somehow Crossing you know uh the bearing uh land bridge I would say this is the best bet at the moment of of what science can say of U of U of your ancestry so yeah I just wanted to be honest I didn't want to be like the other scientist that has just filled you with lies and stuff right I mean I mean it hasn't been easy for me standing I knew that it wouldn't be well received of course I mean in there I knew that but at least I'm honest right about about your theories yeah about your theories you're going to be honest with us we've heard those types of things before those theories change all the time your attention please M other items will not have been on interuption all to the flight oxygen very [Music] [Music] at um so see as for I maybe it's just a coincidence but I'm I I just you didn't take care of those ancestral remains we call it inding sickness hey Donna I mean this um spiritual sickness or engine sickness or whatever you know these guys were talking about how much do we believe in that I mean of course I'm a scientist and I'm are you done with your science yet are dead there in interrupted place you know we they never asked to be prisoners of uh science is there somebody who could help me if there are people out there I think I want you to talk to somebody I I know of a person who can possibly help you and we can try yeah you know you don't car the belief that remains are kind of sacred yeah and they're to be left alone so when you do that the spirit will kind of mess with your mind yeah sometimes they do worse things than that we've seen that with archaeologists you know we see what the ancestors have done to them okay and it's real and our own Indian people we're the ones suffering also because we're not taking care of our an ERS the way we should be and a lot of them are still in museums and other places where they shouldn't be so I'm making a living from doing these kind of studies right this is what I'm doing and and it's also I it it at least it seems to so far have helped getting some of these remains back yeah and we try to help you the best we can we have things that we can use and give you to help you protect your spirit and your soul and yourself because you're doing so much good for our people you brought these ancient ones home and in our creation Legends were made from the dust in the dirt and when we die we should go back to the dust in the dirt and whenever we walk on Mother Earth we're always walking on the shoulders of our ancestors that's turned back back to the Dust [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Martin but the Divergence time buter how old 40,000 but that's crazy man so it's much older than Mal I mean then the everything we thought about this is wrong then so we need to do a recall [Music] it has been quite hard for me presenting or preparing this talk because along this route I have misinterpreted some of my own findings basically because I'm a European and it's pretty clear that background has affected how I initially interpretated the results because I assumed European must be the old one the Americas must be the young one and based on that you know I myself when I interpretating my data I'm taking that view and it was first when I got direct evidence which contradicted that I was like oh what have I done you know this this is totally wrong we can see that this group of Yana and malar is neither Asian neither European it's something completely unique so when the branches separates into what we eventually becomes European and eventually becomes what we call Asians today there was actually a third group of people emerging way way back in time and these peoples were the ones that settled you know the b car settled the Far Far North long time ago and also five 6,000 years ago domesticated the horse and Native Americans are deriving among other things from this group of people and in that sense you can say scientist we always want to to present ourselves as being very objective right but I just have to conclude at least on my own behalf but I think I that goes for a lot of my colleagues to I mean we are also a product right on that Society we have been part of and raised by and this is also affecting the way we are you can say looking and interpretating our own results [Music] [Music]

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 32,350

Keywords: Science and Technology, Genetics, DNA analysis, Native Americans, United States, Indigenous People, Documentary, Science Documentary, Scientists, Al Jazeera English, Indigenous tribes, Human origins, Al Jazeera documentary, Al Jazeera, History, North America, Al Jazeera Latest, Al Jazeera Live, AlJazeera Live, Science, Technology, DNA, Indigenous, First Americans, Archaeology, Origins

Id: tt7PxrrYCmI

Length: 47min 14sec (2834 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2024