Staff Reports
Local and state officials are awaiting guidance from Native American authorities about human bones found by workers excavating ground looking for a sewer line near the future home of the Bartholomew County Court Services Center.
The tribal authorities could ask for the bones to be reburied at the site they were found and for the utility line work to be redirected around the area, or they could take custody of the Native American remains for reburial at a different site, said Rachel Sharkey, a research archeologist with the Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archeology, who is investigating the discovery.
Construction workers were trying to locate a 1940s-era clay sewer line as part of the court services building project at 555 First St., when on May 18 they found the human bones, intermixed with animal bones, at the site. The bones were found about 6- to 7-feet deep, mixed with animal leg bones from pig and cattle that had been severed by some sort of serrated saw, said Health Pope, Columbus city redevelopment director.
Since the bones were not found in any sort of casket or burial container, Sharkey confirmed that investigators believe the bones were moved to the site at some unknown point in time. It is unknown why they were found in a somewhat jumbled formation, and why the human bones were not laid out in an anatomically correct way, as would have been expected with a burial.
It does still need to be verified that the bones themselves are of Native American origin, but Sharkey said it is “highly probable given the context in which they were found.”
There were no Native American artifacts found with the bones, another indication that the bones may have been moved, Pope said.
Investigators have been called to scenes like this in the past around Indiana, when there were excavations for sewer lines or other types of utilities, and discovered that workers excavating dirt hundreds of years ago to bury the sewer tile encountered grave sites or human remains.
“We have to remember that the laws to protect these sites didn’t exist at that time, nor did the sensitivity toward Native American gravesites,” she said.
One of the scenarios being considered is that back in the 1940s, when this clay sewer tile was installed, the workers perhaps came upon a grave site and then simply used the dirt they excavated, including the human bones, as fill dirt on top of the sewer line as they refilled the site, she said. The bones were found above the sewer tile installed in the 1940s, not below it.
“We have seen that happen in the past,” Sharkey said, “And it is within the realm of possibility.”
She also added, “Cases like this aren’t typical, and it has a lot of us scratching our heads over what happened.”
Sharkey said it is possible that the remains were uncovered during the excavation for the 1940 sewer tile, and that the additional bones from the animals were added in at some point when the line was covered over with the fill dirt.
The animal bones found with the human remains are newer, and not of the same time period as the human bones, she said. She believes the animal bones would be “historical,” dating from the 1800s to the early 1900s.
If the tribal officials wish to have the remains excavated and removed, the site would have to be expanded for a more thorough investigation, Sharkey said.
The instances of finding ancient remains of past dwellers throughout the area indicates “what is now known as Columbus (now) has been a popular area for thousands of years,” she said.
