Kennewick Man's bones are transferred to the control of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Litigation begins in the U.S. Magistrate Court. A team of federally selected anthropologists present their preliminary findings based on non-destructive examinations of the remains carried out at the Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum earlier in the week. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is informed of the discovery because the site is federal land under its control. A group of five Native American tribes claims these human remains under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a federal law.
Additional research is carried out at the site on the Columbia River.
Despite tribal opposition, the National Park Service announces its decision to destroy more of Kennewick Man's skeleton in order to confirm the age of the bones. A local newspaper in Eastern Washington publishes a story of the discovery. This first public news prompts a representative of a local Native American tribe to contact authorities about the discovery. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stabilizes the site where the bones were found. Scholars working for the National Park Service select a bone sample to be used in dating Kennewick Man.