The skeleton known as Kennewick Man was discovered in 1996 by two young men along the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. When the skeleton was brought to Jim Chatters, a forensic anthropologist, Chatters first believed that the remains were those of a nineteenth-century pioneer. He was astonished when radiocarbon dating revealed the skeleton to be approximately 9 500 years old, making it one of the oldest skeletons ever found in North America. This is Chatters' account.