Bones found are ancient

By Holly Bristow
FOX 35 News

Winter Garden, Florida - When these human bones were found in Winter Garden in January, it was thought they could date back to the 1970's. That estimate was wrong, very wrong. "It's a fascinating case. a lot of fun," said Orange County's Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia.
Crews digging to build a pool in Winter Garden's Carriage Pointe subdivision stumbled upon these in January. Because of these newspaper clippings dated 1978, the chief medical examiner thought she might be trying help solve a crime. She was shocked when the head of UCF's archaeology department dated bones and trinkets as being ancient. "According to archaeologist they appear to be from the South Peruvian region, dating them between 1200 and 1400," said Dr. Jan Garavaglia.
Looking back Dr. G recalls something on the smaller skull that first made her doubt these were from the late 1970's. "In this case it was the skull of a rather young person. I X-rayed it immediately. There was some mummified soft tissue which we don't usually see here in Florida in older," said Dr. Garavaglia.
Then she noticed an extra bone on the lar
larger skull. "The Inca bone, it gets caught up in the suture very commonly called the inca bone because it was prominent in mummies they'd find. That one was much more readily identifiable as being old, a lot of pitting," said Dr. Garavaglia.
The archaeologists helping Dr. G did not carbon date the bones. Along with those identifying details on the bones, they used clues from the purse and tapestries. "The archaeology department says these are really slings, crude slings," said Dr. Garavaglia.
Along with what's left of these clay pots to help determine they're between 600 and 800 years old. Dr. G says that means the backyard where the bones were found is a second burial site. That has her curious. "The big mystery is how did they get there, and who put them there?" ask Dr. Garavaglia.
The property where the bones were found used to be a migrant camp. Dr. G says these skulls could have been handed down from generation to generation then brought over here when the migrant worker moved to Florida. Not knowing what to do with them, someone generations later could have buried them in Winter Garden, thinking they'd never be found.





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