A district court in the United States is due to begin hearing a case on the future of a 9,300 year-old skeleton found on the shore of the Columbia river five years ago.

American Indian tribes say the skeleton - known as Kennewick Man - is an ancient descendant, and should be buried with respect.

Anthropologists say the bones - one of the oldest and most complete skeletons ever found in North America - should be studied to learn more about the region's earliest inhabitants.

The bones were discovered in July 1996 in an eroding river bank at Kennewick, Washington, by two college students.

Scientists say the skeleton - bearing a stone spear point in the pelvis - has too much to tell about how human beings populated North American to be reburied.

'Not proven'

Their attorneys argue that the government has not proved that the skeleton is native American, which the Interior Department defines as anyone who was within the boundaries of the present United States in 1492.

Using a date alone to determine whether remains are Native American is wrong, they say.

Scientists believe the bones - now stored in the Burke Museum in Seattle - are the remains of a hunter aged about 40 with a prominent nose and heavily muscled legs.

Kennewick Man could support recent theories that the continent's earliest arrivals came not by a land bridge between Russia and Alaska - a long-held theory - but by boat or some other route.

These physical characteristics, they say, more closely resemble people from Polynesia and southern Asia than local Indians.

'Close call'

In September last year, Bruce Babbitt, then Secretary of the US Interior Department, ruled that Kennewick Man should be turned over to the tribes for burial.

At the time, Mr Babbitt called his decision a "close call", and said it was based mainly on the tribes' oral histories and the area where Kennewick Man was found.

The merits of that decision, along with the scientists' claims, are expected to be weighed up in the latest hearing.