This is a sad case of propaganda and media hype making it's way into American popculture. Yes, the "10,000 year old skull" IS loosely based on a real find (the 9,200 yr old Kennewick Man skeleton)... but the premise follows deliberate propaganda by racist hate groups & by politically motivated scientists more than it does reality. No "anomalous" skull would change laws one iota, let alone inspire a coverup by "feaful tribes". Kennewick Man was "claimed" (by a deputy coroner who bumbled the case from day one) to "look White", once he was found to be over 9,000 yrs old this unsupported claim was seized on by white supremicist groups wanting to claim that America was "really a White homeland" & that ancient White firstcomers had been exterminated by Mongoloid invaders (hoping to make the "Conquest of the Americas" seem a tit-fot-tat retaking of White territory rather than the genocide it really is) AND by certain archaeologists trying to fan discontent with a piece of federal legislation called the Native American Graves Repatriation Act (which gave federally recognized Native American tribes.... rather than the archies.... control over "some" Native American skeletons & artifacts found in "part" of the U.S.). SCIENTIFIC STUDY of Kennewick Man proved he was not even vaguely White, that he was NEITHER Caucasian nor even "Caucasoid". He most closely matched Native American, coastal Asian, & Pacific populations. A motley assortment of White racists, neo-pagans, & scientists (politics making odd bedfellows) all pushed the inane conspiracy theory that ancient remains like Kennewick's somehow suggested that Native Americans WEREN'T the first inhabitants of the Americas but that the tribes were covering it up due to fear of losing "special priviledges" & that the govt was going along because the tribes were "somehow" able to coerce them (old myth of an ant raping an elephant?). In reality, ALL evidence (DNA, dental, craniometric, linguistic, etc) says that modern Native Americans ARE descendants of the FIRST arrivals in the Americas. It's unknown... but IRRELEVANT... whether these first arrivals were one people or several peoples who blended together to make Native Americas. So called Native American "priviledge" is just normal U.S. citizens' rights PLUS in some cases "Treaty Rights" extended "some but not all" enrolled members of some U.S. tribes.... Treaty Rights are legal rights the tribes got guaranteed in exchange for giving land to the U.S. SOME (Federally recognized, "Sovereign Nation") Native American tribal GOVTS have "special" rights (re taxation, self rule, etc), but these are merely comparable to what govts of States & U.S. Trust territories like Puerto Rico enjoy. "Indians" don't fear any truth behind ancient skeletons, at most they fear White racism & the effects of a hyped up media frenzy.

The 10,000 year old skull is based on a real incident - Google "Kennewick Man" for an extremely intriguing story, although it doesn't have the added feature of someone like Chief Clearwater. Clearwater is played by one of my favourite Canadian actors, Graham Greene, who is one of a number of extremely talented Native Canadians in the business today.

Wasn't really paying attention to the episode, but I was annoyed at everyone's "concern" that Alan had kept his wife's clothes. They were married for decades--why is it wrong for him to want to keep some of her things? Surely Charlie ought to understand a little better than he seemed to, having hidden in a garage for months before and after she died. I missed how this all played out, but something tells me it ended with Alan getting rid of the clothes.