Gordon Creek Woman Meets Spirit Cave Man: A Response to Comment by Owsley and Jantz

Abstract

Owsley and Jantz (2001) allege that we (Swedlund and Anderson 1999) misunderstand and misrepresent the events surrounding the controversy over Kennewick Man, and that we misconstrue statements they have made regarding Spirit Cave Man. They then move to their own analysis of Gordon Creek Woman to demonstrate the value of their morphometric techniques in addressing questions of biological affinity. In this reply we clarify and amplify our position on the key issues on which they challenge us, and we evaluate their morphometric analysis of Gordon Creek Woman. To our previous call for bioarchaeologists to more explicitly acknowledge the political environment in which questions of biological affinity currently arise, we add our concern that the methodologies used have their own set of problems and limitations.