No Bone Unturned
Inside the World of a Top Forensic Scientist and His Work on America's Most Notorious Crimes and Disasters
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4.3 • 7 Ratings
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- $6.99
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Publisher Description
“A fast and exciting read. . . . This survey of Owsley’s career will appeal to both science and legal buffs.” --Publishers Weekly
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As the title implies, this is two books in one. The first chronicles the fascinating scientific sleuthing of Smithsonian forensic anthropologist Doug Owsley, one of the world's leading experts in the interpretation of human skeletons and bone fragments. Investigative journalist Benedict (Without Reservation, etc.) follows Owsley as he flies into a dangerous paramilitary-controlled area in Guatemala to recover bone fragments that will enable him to identify the remains of a murdered journalist; into the charnel house that had been the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, where he identifies infants and children blown apart when the compound was destroyed; and into the archives at the Jamestown Colony, where Owsley correctly identifies a skeleton as belonging to an African-American, thus establishing that whites and blacks had lived together in America from the very earliest English settlement. The second half of the book chronicles Owsley and other scientists' legal battle to stop the government from turning over the controversial 9,000-year-old remains of the skeleton known as Kennewick Man, found in Washington State, to Native American groups, thus denying anthropologists an opportunity to study them. The book is a fast and exciting read up to the legal battle, where Benedict's recreation of the courtroom confrontations and behind-the-scenes maneuvering slows the pace considerably. This survey of Owsley's career will appeal to both science and legal buffs looking for a good weekend read. 8 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.
