Saturday, March 7, 2009

Skulls found on West Mesa may be up to 300 years old

Clara Garcia News-Bulletin Staff Writer; cgarcia@news-bulletin.com

Rio Puerco What police first thought might be a crime scene when a human skull was discovered in an arroyo near the Rio Puerco Wednesday turned out to be remains that are possibly decades or even hundreds of years old.

A man hunting for arrowheads made the discovery and immediately called sheriff's deputies, alerting them to what he had found. When Valencia County sheriff's detectives went to the scene and began examining the skull, they soon realized that the remains appeared to be old.

Within a few hours of digging out the remains, with the assistance of the Office of the Medical Investigator, a second set of remains was found buried next to the first. The team of investigators remained on the scene until the late hours of Wednesday and returned early Thursday.

Detective Sgt. John Gordon said when they went back out to the scene, about 10 miles west of Belen, a morphologist with the OMI, who is working on her doctoral thesis in archeology, determined that both sets of skeletal remains were historic, dating back between 80 to 300 years.

"They (OMI) won't conclude any race or ethnicity of the remains," Gordon said. "They could be from any era really. She was able to tell me that she could made a rough estimate on the age of the remains from the flaking of the bone and how the teeth were ground — which she says was indicative of the person's diet."

Gordon said because of the age of the remains found, the case has been turned over to the State Historical Society for further review and examination. The detective said that both skeletons have been preserved until a determination about how to move forward is made.

"They (the remains) were handled with the utmost care and dignity and according to department procedure," Gordon said when asked about how the remains were processed.

The sheriff's department was able to make contact with the man who leases the property, and he told detectives that the erosion in the ravine where the bones were discovered had recently progressed due to a large rainstorm that occurred several years ago.

He also told investigators that he had found another human skull about six weeks prior on his property, about five miles south near the Socorro County line.

"Anytime we find any type of human remains, we automatically assume it's a crime scene," Gordon said. "But we have to wait until the folks from OMI take a look and determine how old and the condition of the remains. They are also looking at the circumstances surrounding the scene and if the person died as a result of a medical issue, if it's an historic issue or if it's actually a homicide."

Gordon said it's not too unusual for the sheriff's department to hear from a citizen who says they discovered a human bone somewhere in the county. He says it happens once or twice a year.

"A few years ago, someone came in saying that they found a human foot," Gordon said. "It actually turned out to be a bear's foot."

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