COLUMBUS — What appears to be precontact Native American human remains were found by construction crews in Columbus, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
The remains were found at the construction site for the new court services building.
Rachel Sharkey, a research archaeologist for Indiana DNR, said a team from the University of Indianapolis is working to collect the remains and will monitor the site for any other potential remains.
Once all of the remains are collected, the team will then analyze the remains to try to determine how many are present, their biological ages and sexes if possible and the time period they are from.
It appears the human remains are precontact, meaning they are from a time before indigenous people had contact with an outside culture.
Once the analysis is done, the remains will be reburied at an undetermined location in consultation with interested Native American groups, Sharkey said.
