Can you believe the treasures people find in bungalows in Illinois?
Mainly skulls, in this case, 26 of them to be precise, and well-preserved. The entire bungalow is something of a mini-museum, and to think, it was sold by the city for back-taxes, so the buyer probably got a crazy deal on the place.
State laws protecting Indian burial sites from excavations were not enacted until the 1980s. In the 1930s, “anyone with a shovel” could dig into these sites, Harn said. Some did so to build personal collections, while others hoped to sell curiosities for cash at the height of the Great Depression.
The new owner hasn’t announced what she’s going to do with the skulls. She could donate them to a museum, sell them, give them to a reburial organization. Often these sorts of articles are treated like throwaways and you never hear how the story ends. I’ll do my utmost to follow up.
Shocking! -ro184737
Wow, what a great story. It makes me want to run out and buy a detector.
A skull detector?
” But Joseph “Standing Bear” Schranz,… was “extremely appalled” at the size of this find–and particularly by the skull possibly fashioned into an ashtray.”
Yeah, no doubt.
I hope they go back in the ground.
I agree, pitshade, although I think there may be some room for compromise, something like the skulls receive proper burial and the fragments are donated to science.
I just hope she doesn’t sell them.