Ute Mountain Ute tribal member Terry Knight, a cultural specialist and the tribe’s NAGPRA coordinator, is suspicious of overrated claims derived solely from "Kennewick" man, but doesn’t discount the possibility of open-sea migration and trade to and from the New World.

"Further scientific data of Kennewick man has shown that there is no absolute proof that he was European," he said. "He might have been, but they could not know for sure where that person may have arrived from. He may have been Native American, and throughout time the facial features could have changed as the early people migrated southward."

Ancient Ute Mountain history is derived from the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family originating from the Aztec Empire from what is now Central America, Knight said. "We migrated north from there, not across the Bering Strait."

"Columbus was not the first to arrive here by boat," he continued. "Thousands of years before his time, human curiosity led adventurous people to build boats and see how far they can go on it. There are historic Indian tales in the north that tell of visiting men with red hair, but they did not stay and settle."

Studies of migration routes and early inhabitants in the Americas need to involve more input from the world’s Indian tribes and their history, Knight said, before being published.