July 25, 2012

Workers find human skull

A human skull found by construction crews digging a watermain line in Winnipeg, Man. belonged to a 19th century pioneer.

Archeologist Brian Smith said judging by the size of the bones, the person was likely a teenager.

He said the individual appears to have been properly buried in a coffin about 125 years ago.

Work on the jobsite came to an abrupt halt with the discovery last Wednesday, but it resumed the next day.

Backhoe operator Phil Wollmann said he was digging under a sidewalk when he felt “a little crunch’’ and found the bones. Between 1870 and 1908, the nearby cemetery held thousands of gravesites but over time, many were forgotten or moved. Currently only about 500 marked gravesites remain.

“We put the remains back to where they were and moved the waterline,’’ said Smith.

News from © Canadian Press Enterprises Inc., 2012

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