Lost, then found: Indigenous remains unearthed at Conn College repatriated decades later
Sep. 21—NEW LONDON — A Native American man, he'd been buried in a fetal position on his right side. He'd suffered from dental conditions and pulmonary tuberculosis, and was 45 or so when he died during the late 16th or 17th century.
Anthropologists who studied his remains ― unearthed in March 1981 by a bulldozer preparing a Connecticut College soccer field along the Thames River ― divined all this and more about him, publishing their findings in a 1991 edition of the Connecticut Archaeology Bulletin and, perhaps, elsewhere.
What professors Harold Juli and Marc Kelley, the report's authors, didn't do is effectively catalogue the remains' whereabouts, a subject of keen interest to the Mashantucket Pequots and the Mohegans, the region's federally recognized Indian tribes.
Eventually, the remains turned up at the University of Rhode Island in 2022, when Fiona Jones, who'd been hired to help comb through the anthropology department's collection of unidentified human remains, encountered a box bearing remains and a label marked "CC7."
Its provenance was a mystery.
"All we had were the remains. No paperwork, no documentation," Jones said of the box and its contents. "In this case, I wasn't sure we would be able to repatriate."
Repatriation, in fact, is the intent of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, a 1990 federal law requiring colleges, museums and other institutions that receive federal funding to return, or repatriate, Indigenous human remains and cultural artifacts to the descendants of federally recognized tribes that have a connection to them.
Luckily, Jones, who left URI last month to pursue a doctorate in anthropology at Syracuse, had done some NAGPRA-related work at the University of Connecticut, where she'd come across material with labeling similar to the "CC7." The material had belonged to Juli, who had collaborated with Kelley at URI.
Both men died in 2007.
Jones surmised the "CC" stood for Connecticut College, where associate professor Anthony Graesch, the college archaeologist, was able to confirm the remains in URI's possession were the ones unearthed in New London some 40 years earlier.
According to Graesch, Connecticut College transferred the remains to the joint custody of the Mashantucket and Mohegan tribes late last year. In November, they were again laid to rest in the vicinity of their original burial on the campus.
Protecting cultural heritage
Recently, the college has called attention to the repatriation and to the results of subsequent surveys of its land.
"Connecticut College is proud to partner with our tribal neighbors to respectfully care for any Indigenous human remains and artifacts on our campus," John Cramer, Conn's vice president of marketing and communications, said in a statement. "The College's archaeologist position and new process are intended to protect these important archaeological sites and cultural heritage resources.
"As a result of 10 more likely ancestral burials being discovered beneath Dawley Field, varsity track and field javelin and discus throwing events are being relocated and club rugby was removed from this field."
Kristine Bovy, a professor of anthropology and chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at URI, also was pleased with the resolution of the matter, achieved, she said, through "a great partnership among Conn, URI and the tribes."
"We have no interest in keeping indigenous remains in boxes on shelves anymore," she said.
While many Indigenous remains still are held by institutions, Bovy said it's highly unlikely a mystery like that of the "CC7" remains would occur in the post-NAGPRA world.
According to the National NAGPRA Program, between the 1990 and 2023 fiscal years, nearly 117,000 human remains ― 55% of remains reported ― have undergone the NAGPRA process. As of September 2023, more than 96,000 human remains had yet to be reviewed and acted upon, 95% of which were not yet "culturally affiliated."
In the wake of the repatriation of the "CC7" remains, Graesch and his students have continued to study Conn's land, including a site where solar panels were to be installed.
"Back in the '80s, they should have asked, 'Are there more (human remains),' " Graesch said.
Last year, a State Historic Preservation Grant funded a non-invasive archaeological survey of Dawley Field, an athletic field on Conn's Thames River waterfront where both Indigenous ancestors and European settlers were known to be buried. TerraSearch Geophysical, a Berlin archaeology consulting firm, used ground-penetrating radar and magnetometry, identifying at least 10 potential Indigenous burials.
Conn contracted TerraSearch to survey adjacent areas, the results of which are pending.
Because of the work done at Conn in the 1980s, TerraSearch knew what to look for, David Leslie, the firm's principal, said.
None of the newly discovered burial sites are to be disturbed.
"We have no intention of excavating any of the features revealed with geophysical methods," Graesch said. "Archaeology at Connecticut College adheres to ethical practices that preclude the study, acquisition, or curation of human remains."
