Staff Reports
Work on a portion of the construction site of the new Bartholomew County Court Services building has halted after human bones were found by workers using an excavator to try to locate an old sewer line.
The workers, who were trying to locate a 1940s-era clay sewer line as part of the building project, stopped work May 18 after the excavator brought up a number of bones from a depth of 6- to 7-feet at the construction site at 555 First St., said Heather Pope, Columbus city redevelopment director.
The area where the bones were found was underneath a drive and partially underneath a grassy area that would have been near the previous building on the site. The contractors working on the site believe the clay sewer line would be from the 1940s and the bones would have pre-dated that. No other artifacts such as clay pots or Native American items were found with the bones, Pope said.
Bartholomew County Coroner Clayton Nolting was called to the scene as per protocol and took some photos after determining some of the bones, but not all of them, were human, Pope said.
The state’s historic preservation archeology department was then called and investigators looked over the site and determined bones were likely Native American remains — and concurred that not all the bones were human.
The city contacted the University of Indianapolis, whose archeological researchers recommended roping off and securing the area where the bones were found and calling the Indiana Department of Natural Resources’ historic preservation and archeology division.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has jurisdiction over remains that are found that are believed to pre-date 1939. DNR archeologist Rachel Sharkey, a research archeologist with the Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archeology, was called in to investigate.
The site is somewhat of a mystery in that, although the bones were found at about the same depth that a human grave would be dug, they were not all human remains and were not found in a box, casket, bag or any type of burial container, Pope said.
And even more odd, along with the human bones, animal leg bones were found from pig and cattle carcasses, and there were indications those bones had been severed by a serrated saw, investigators said.
So far, all that is known is that the human bones, which do not make up a complete skeleton, were found jumbled together with the animal bones, Pope said. The DNR has said that the bones don’t have “definitive” proof of being Native American, but they do have attributes that indicate the bones could be “ancestral remains.”
Sharkey has told city officials she does not believe the site where the bones were found is the original resting place for the human remains, and that they were moved there at some time which is indicated by the lack of a full skeleton and the depth of the excavation site.
The city and county have a couple options as to how to proceed, including relocating the sewer line work around the site where the bones were found, or asking Native American organizations if they wish to take the bones to relocate them.
Without definitive analysis that the bones are Native American, it is unknown if they would be relocated by a tribe to other burial grounds, Pope said.
In the late 18th and early 19th century, the tribes of the Miami, Delaware, Wabash, and Shawnee lived in and around Indiana and near Columbus, according to local records of the Bicentennial committee.
The Delaware tribe in particular lived along the banks of the Flatrock River and Clifty Creek, both of which run through Bartholomew County. Most of the Delawares left Indiana between 1818 and 1821 after ceding their lands in the Treaty of St. Mary’s (Ohio). It was estimated that the White River Delaware numbered 800 people at the time of their removal to present-day Kansas and Oklahoma.
