News

By Emily J. Minor
    
Feeling old, like you’ve lived in Florida since the beginning of time?
    Think again.
    Human bones unearthed at an ocean-side estate construction site in Delray Beach are those of an adult and an adolescent and are probably about 1,000 years old, said one of the archaeologists who studied the remains.
    Bob Carr, executive director of the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy Inc., said they studied both the “teethware” and the suturing of the bones — basically the connectivity at the joint where two bones come together — and decided the bones are at least 1,000 years old and might even date back 3,000 years.
    Carr, whose nonprofit has been around since 1985 and works to research and preserve archaeological sites for historic documentation, said researchers think the remains might belong to members of the Jeaga tribe, Native Americans who lived in Florida until about the 1700s.
    The Jeagas lived mostly from southern Palm Beach County, north to the Indian River.
    “We’re really not sure,” said Carr, who studied the bones with another conservancy archaeologist, Dr. Ryan Franklin. “We’re not sure they’re the same people because they could be their ancestors. We just don’t know.”
    The discovery of the human remains, including the femur bones and skulls, briefly stopped construction at the site in the 900 block of South Ocean Boulevard back in December 2010. While Florida has its share of archaeological finds — a lot of the ones in South Florida are in the Jupiter area — it’s still both unusual and unsettling to accidentally come across human bones.
    In the hours after the discovery, the construction site was taped off as police considered a possible murder on their hands. Authorities quickly realized the find was more historic than nefarious, and the remains were handed over to experts for examination.
    “Human remains are not often encountered during construction, but they are encountered more often than most people think,” Carr said.
    Once the bones were studied, Carr said they were returned to the site and reburied. Under state law, the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes establish the rules for preservation of Native American remains and usually, unless there are extreme circumstances, the bones are returned to where they were found, said Daniel M. Seinfeld, a senior archaeologist with the state of Florida.
    The thinking, Seinfeld said, is that someone intentionally buried the body there, and that’s where the bones should always remain.
    The waterfront estate on A1A isn’t done yet, but builders have said they would build some sort of plaque or remembrance to mark the findings.