An ancient Native American burial ground uncovered just days before Halloween of 1975, may sound like the ultimate ‘80s horror movie plot. However, the true story is more of a murky mystery.
What was praised as a blueprint for archeologist and Native tribe relations, and resulted in the discovery of 26 3,000-year-old individual remains, has been mostly forgotten and may now — nearly 50 years later — be lost forever.The archaeological site, known as 13PW5, sits at the location of the former Lewis Central Junior School, now known as Titan Hill Intermediate School.
Some believe the area still holds more artifacts, which recently prompted a local historian to rally for a second excavation using modern and less intrusive technology.
“I’m interested in laser mapping the site with a radar,” said Troy Stolp, local historian and Lewis Central teacher.
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A second excavation could allow archeologists and anthropologists to use modern processes, like archaeogenetics, on the remains. It also may act as a re-do, giving the remains of the oldest known inhabitants of Pottawattamie County the burial they were promised some 40 years ago.
In the last week of October 1975, construction for Lewis Central Junior School began. During the first week of construction, a worker ran over a skeleton at the foot of Titan Hill and alerted a coroner. Other bones had previously been hauled away by contractor Sam Thomas, who believed they were cattle bones.
The coroner determined that the bones were not of a modern human, but of an ancient Native American individual who resided in the county more than 1,000 years ago. Due to this finding, State Archeologist Duane Anderson suggested a dig was necessary.
The state and highway archeologists joined a team of volunteer undergraduate students from the University of Iowa for the dig. They convened on the site and uncovered an ossuary, or a space in which the deceased’s bones are placed.
“An ossuary is one of the most sacred discoveries in archaeology,” Stolp said. “Religious artifacts and burials are the hardest to discover, so more than likely there are remains of a campsite nearby.”
Dirk Marcucci, a 20-year-old student at the time, arrived on Nov. 19, 1975 with a team of five other students. Today, Dirk is Vice President of Landmark Archaeology, Inc., in Upstate New York.
“The project was important for a couple of reasons. One is that it’s a major find to uncover a well-preserved late archaic ossuary that is more or less intact,” Marcucci explained. “Secondly, the project became the poster child for working with Native tribes to decide what happens after the artifacts and remains are studied.”
The university’s archeology team found 26 archaic individuals ranging from 3 to 65 years old. They also found mollusks from the nearby Missouri River that they were buried with, as well as stone tools and lithic artifacts.
Some of the bones recovered were full skeletons in a flexed position, others were scattered and disarticulated and some indicated bundle burials.
Due to a 1971 event dubbed the “Glenwood Incident,” it was imperative that archeologists work closely with Native American tribes to respectfully excavate and rebury the individuals.
During the Glenwood Incident, a colonial cemetery in Glenwood was discovered in 1971 and, while the 26 white settler bodies were immediately reburied, the skeletal remains of a Native American woman and her child were taken to Iowa State to be studied by archaeologists and stored.
Ancient burial sites were not covered by Iowa grave protection laws, so one Native American spokesperson and Yankton Sioux — Maria Running Moccasins Pearson or “Hai-Mecha Eunka” — decided to protest for change.
Over the next five years, Pearson met with legislators, archaeologists, anthropologists, physical anthropologists and other tribal members, which led to the passage of the Iowa Burials Protection Act of 1976.
According to a Nonpareil article from 1975, Edward Cline, chairman of the Omaha Tribal Council, told school attorney Jack Peters that they were concerned only that the recently discovered remains be moved and reburied with dignity.
Peters said state law requires the remains to be disinterred and reburied by a licensed embalmer. At the time, William Cutler of Cutler Funeral Home said when the permit was received, the remains would be collected and put in a casket and then carried by hearse to the Lewis Township Cemetery a half mile from Lewis Central Junior High School. He also said a suitable marker would be put on the grave.
“The only expense to the school district will be the purchase of the space for reburial and digging the grave, less than $250,” Cutler told the Nonpareil in 1975.
Except, a marker was never placed and there is no evidence that the remains were ever buried. The record keeper for Lewis Township Cemetery since 2016, Al Wegman, confirmed that there are no records.
Which begs the question, where are the remains?
The school attorney, funeral home director and Omaha tribal council chairman have all since died. With a mystery of this age, we may never have all the answers, but the remainder of the burial site still sits somewhere on Titan Hill.
“The remains of people at site 13PW5 are over 3,000 years old and, as far as we know, they not related to any tribes in this area, including the Omaha, which took on their case,” Stolp said. “All of the known tribes in this area came in the late 1500s and 1600s.”
According to Stolp, tribes moved west from the east coast due to the European invasion.
The age of 3,000-plus years was proposed by State Archaeologist Duane Anderson and Highway Archaeologist John Hotopp, based on a report by Anthropologist Dr. Michael Finnegan. This indicates the remains are those of Archaic period inhabitants.
Nevertheless, the remains found are still those of Indigenous Americans, permanently linking them to all Native peoples, regardless of tribal affiliation.
“It’s not perfect,” Marcucci said. “The local tribes act more or less like spokespeople and I think it’s the best system.”
Marcucci is firm in his belief that all archeologists and anthropologists involved had no intention of trampling on Native peoples’ rights and beliefs. The truth is, nobody knows what went awry.
“The State of Iowa archeologists’ office retained no remains from the site,” Stolp said. “I inquired about it last year in hopes that there could be a DNA study to find where 13PW5 people fit in with other Native peoples, but the remains are lost.”
13PW5’s real victory is the framework it created in Native American and researcher relations.
“Many of the remains excavated in the 19th century were taken to measure skull size to determine the superior race,” said Brady DeSanti, Director of Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Nation. “While that sort of cultural evolutionary framework is no longer operational today, it’s left a long legacy.”
According to the National Park Service approximately 32,000 individuals, 670,000 funerary objects, 120,000 unassociated funerary objects, and 3,500 sacred objects have been returned to their respective tribes since the 1990 adaptation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or NAGPRA.
While museums and universities clear the skeletons out of their closets, repatriation continues to be impossible for the lost artifacts and remains of 13PW5.