Skeletons in the closet

http://www.hcn.org/issues/42.3/skeletons-in-the-closet

Utah State Archaeologist Kevin Jones knows his bones

Profile - From the February 15, 2010 issue of High Country News
by Keith Kloor

Name Kevin Jones

Age 58

Current Hometown Salt Lake City, Utah

Night job Aspiring novelist. His yet-unpublished opus, The Shrinking Jungle, set in the 1960s, follows the Ache, a Paraguayan tribe of hunter/gatherers Jones lived among while working on his Ph.D. dissertation.

Utah State Archaeologist Kevin Jones has seen a lot of skeletons in his time. So last May, when National Geographic Adventure magazine printed a story claiming that someone had found the bones of Everett Ruess -- the legendary itinerant nature lover and writer who disappeared into the southern Utah desert 75 years ago -- Jones and his colleague, Derinna Kopp, had their doubts. The accompanying pictures seemed odd, Jones says: "Certain clues just jump right out."

The skull's incisors looked worn down, for example, indicating that it belonged to a Native American who ate a traditional diet of stone-ground corn, not a 20-something Anglo from Los Angeles. Even after a DNA test linked the skeleton to Ruess' relatives, Jones didn't buy it. "DNA is just another line of evidence, and can yield mistakes as well," he stubbornly asserted to the Salt Lake Tribune. The two University of Colorado forensic scientists who analyzed the remains accused him of being a conspiracy theorist. But in October, a second round of DNA testing, initiated by Ruess' family at another lab, proved he was right. The CU researchers were unable to duplicate their initial results, and the remains were returned to the Navajo Nation.

If Jones feels vindicated, he's not crowing. A bearish 58-year-old who looks like he'd be comfy in a biker bar, Jones is no stranger to controversy. It's his job to safeguard archaeological sites from looting and development -- no easy task in politically conservative Utah. The state's abundant archaeological heritage is often seen as a hindrance to economic interests. Jones has to mediate between politicians, developers and environmentalists, trying to balance preservation with new roads and rail lines. At one state legislative hearing in 2000, Republican Rep. Brad Johnson chastised him for pushing too hard to protect newly discovered ruins, sarcastically saying: "Just tell me how many arrowheads you need, and once you get that many, you can stop holding up highway projects."

god I hate Republicans!

Interesting article, though - thanks!