Human and animal bones found at the construction site for Bartholomew County’s new court services center are being moved to the University of Indianapolis for further study.
"The remains could not be avoided by the project so they are being carefully removed by a qualified archaeological team for protection and analysis," said Rachel Sharkey, a research archaeologist with the Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology.
This team is from the University of Indianapolis, she said, which has been helping with the investigation.
Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is also involved in the investigation and has jurisdiction over remains that are found that are believed to pre-date 1939. DNR staff have also assisted with the removal process, which is still underway.
The next step is analysis at the university.
“They will determine how many individuals are represented, the ages and sex of those individuals if possible, and possibly be able to get a little more information on the date of the remains," Sharkey said.
The human and animal bones will go through similar analysis, with species also being an area of focus for the latter.
Redevelopment Director Heather Pope said that the court services center project is still able to move forward; they’re just working around the dig site. She added that the city will work with the DNR to know when they can have access to that site again.
The bones were found on May 18 by construction workers trying to locate a 1940s-era clay sewer line as part of the court services building project at 555 First Street.
The human bones do not make up a complete skeleton, said Pope in a previous interview, and 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.
Since the bones were not found in a casket or burial container, investigators think the bones were moved to the site at an unknown point in time, Sharkey said in an earlier interview. 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.
Sharkey said the current focus is removal. Then, after analyzing the remains, they can look into reburying them in a safe location where they won’t be disturbed.
However, this future location is still undetermined.
"We have seen indicators during excavations that suggest that the remains are of ancestral Native Americans," Sharkey said. "We have contacted tribal partners and are keeping them informed as to the removal status and will reach out again once it is time for reburial."
She said in a previous interview that tribal authorities could take custody of the remains for reburial at another site, or ask for bones to be reburied at the same site, with utility line work redirected around the area. The excavation and removal scenario would require expanding the site for a more thorough investigation.
Pope said in May that no Native American artifacts were found with the bones, which is another indication that the bones may have been moved.
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.
Sharkey said that the university’s work should reveal more information regarding the bones.
“The analysis will definitely help tell that story," she said. "… No new information has come to light, and we haven’t disproven anything that we thought initially. So it seems to be pretty status quo."
