The Tuqan Man consists of human remains found on

San Miguel Island San Miguel Island (Chumash: ''Tuqan'') is the westernmost of California's Channel Islands, located across the Santa Barbara Channel in the Pacific Ocean, within Santa Barbara County, California. San Miguel is the sixth-largest of the eight Ch ...

off the coast of California in 2005. The skull and bones of a man buried between 9,800 and 10,200 years ago were exposed by beach erosion on this westernmost

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

. The remains were encountered and preserved in 2005 by

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

archaeologists. The remains were dated by way of radiocarbon dating and evaluation of artifacts which had been intentionally buried with him. 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. 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 return to the island was delayed by resolution of tribal identification and ownership issues contingent on resolution of the precedent-setting

Kennewick Man Kennewick Man and Ancient One are the names generally given to the skeletal remains of a prehistoric Paleoamerican man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, on July 28, 1996. It is one of the most complete ancient ...

case from Washington State. Under procedures in accordance with the

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Pub. L. 101-601, 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law enacted on November 16, 1990. The Act requires federal agencies and institutions tha ...

(NAGPRA), in May, 2018, they were restored to the claiming Chumash tribe, for reburial on the island. The

Chumash people The Chumash are a Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, extending from Morro Bay in the north to Mali ...

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 Chumashan was a family of languages that were spoken on the southern California coast by Native American Chumash people, from the Coastal plains and valleys of San Luis Obispo to Malibu, neighboring inland and Transverse Ranges valleys and ca ...

. 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. San Miguel was occupied by the ancestors of the

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

tomol A ''tomol'' or ''tomolo'' (Chumash) or ''te'aat'' or ''ti'at'' (Tongva/Kizh) are plank-built boats, historically and currently in the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles area. They replaced or supplemented tule reed boats. The boats were between in l ...

s, made from sewn planks caulked with

asphaltum Asphaltite (also known as uintahite, asphaltum, gilsonite or oil sands) is a naturally occurring soluble solid hydrocarbon, a form of asphalt (or bitumen) with a relatively high melting temperature. Its large-scale production occurs in the Uintah ...

(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 mammoth The Columbian mammoth (''Mammuthus columbi'') is an extinct species of mammoth that inhabited the Americas as far north as the Northern United States and as far south as Costa Rica during the Pleistocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line ...

s, were extinct for perhaps three millennia prior to the death of Tuqan Man but existed on the Channel Islands when they were first visited by Paleoindians.Flightless ducks, giant mice and pygmy mammoths: Late Quaternary extinctions on California’s Channel Islands
''

World Archaeology ''World Archaeology'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of archaeology. It was established in 1969 and originally published triannually by Routledge & Kegan Paul. In 2004 it changed to a quarterly publication schedule whi ...

'', Volume 44, 2012 - Issue 1: Faunal Extinctions and Introductions, Torben C. Rick, Courtney A. Hofman, Todd J. Braje, Jesus E. Maldonado, T. Scott Sillett, Kevin Danchisko and Jon M. Erlandson. Retrieved June 16, 2018.

References

{{Reflist 2005 archaeological discoveries Archaic period in North America Archaeological sites in California Art and cultural repatriation Native American history of California Oldest human remains in the Americas Unsolved deaths