Tuqan Man

The skull and bones of a man buried between 9,800 and 10,200 years ago on San Miguel Island, in California's Channel Islands, were exposed by beach erosion and discovered and preserved in 2005 by University of Oregon archaeologists. The remains were dated by way of radiocarbon dating and evaluation of artifacts which had been intentionally buried with him. They were analyzed, but it was not possible to extract the Tuqan Man's DNA, though increasingly better testing techniques and methods became available and were utilized over the 12 years that passed after his original discovery. The remains were studied before their return to the island, which was delayed by resolution of tribal identification and ownership issues contingent on resolution of the precedent-setting Kennewick Man case from Washington State. Analysis of the bones indicated that he was in his forties when he died, and had spent time some distance east of what is now the Santa Barbara coastal region. Under procedures in accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), in May, 2018, they were restored to the claiming Chumash tribe, for reburial on the island. The Chumash people had long occupied the island before the arrival of the first European explorers, and the find was given the place name of the island in the Chumash language.^[1]

Archaeological research has shown that San Miguel Island was first settled by humans at least 12,000 years ago, when San Miguel was still part of the larger Santarosae Island that connected the northern Channel Islands when sea levels were lower near the end of the Last Glacial period. Because the northern Channel Islands have not been connected to the adjacent mainland in recent geological history, the Paleo-Indians who first settled the island clearly had boats and other maritime technologies.^[2] San Miguel was occupied by the ancestors of today's Chumash people for many millennia. They had developed a complex and rich maritime culture based on ocean fishing, hunting, and gathering. They called the island Tuquan in the Chumash language. For many centuries, they built and used sophisticated canoes, called tomols, made from sewn planks caulked with asphaltum (bitumen). In tomols, they fished and hunted in island waters and participated in active trade with their neighbors on the other islands and the mainland. A remaining population of a dwarf species descended from Columbian mammoths,^[3] existed on the Channel Islands when they were first visited by Paleoindians, but were extinct for perhaps three millennia prior to the death of Tuqan Man.^[4]

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