Fran Seager-Boss, cultural resource specialist for the Mat-Su Borough, said the skull was found two weeks ago and that since then no work has been done at the site. The project was to build a foundation on which to set a warehouse O.G. Herning built in 1917 that was moved to the area from Wasilla.
“We’re all just sort of suspended right now,” she said. “As soon as any skeletal remains were recovered from this operation we ceased immediately.”
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The area where the skull was found is near the Knik Museum. It’s an area rich in history with multiple buried Native townsites. The museum itself is the last remaining piece of the old Knik Townsite.
Since the area has multiple former settlements, members of the Knik Tribal Council had been watching the digging. They wanted to make sure just this sort of thing didn’t happen.
“That’s the worst possible thing to have happen because that’s somebody’s soul,” said Debra Call, president of the Knik Tribal Council.
It’s a battle the tribe has fought before, Call said. Nobody consulted them when Knik-Goose Bay Road was put almost directly through the townsite. The tribe had to fight to install fencing around a graveyard the Iditarod Trail runs through.
Alfred Theodore, one of the tribal council’s elders, lives across the street from the site. He said that one of the reasons his father worked to get the land for the tribe was its remoteness.
“We didn’t want someone to dig us up and move us,” he said. “Things like this make me feel bad... We respect our dead.”
This go-round, Call said, all due care was taken to make sure no bodies were disturbed. She noted that prior to the dig a team came out with ground-penetrating radar to look for burial sites. Some burial sites were found, but not where the skull was eventually unearthed.
“The skull has the same shape and reads the same as a rock,” she said. “They were looking for coffin shapes.”
Only after the site was surveyed with the radar, she said, was a decision made to move ahead. She said it seemed reasonable to dig there because the Dena’ina wouldn’t have put a burial ground on such swampy land.
“I didn’t have any reason to believe there was anything there,” she said.
Another issue — this might not be the first time the skull was moved. The area where they were digging, Seager-Boss said, had a layer of fill on top of the original ground. The fill came from another construction project.
“We couldn’t tell whether it came from the fill or whether it came from the subsurface,” she said.
Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.
Comments
43 comment(s)nancy wrote on Sep 19, 2009 11:10 PM:
nancy wrote on Sep 13, 2009 4:02 PM:
Mat-Su wrote on Sep 13, 2009 2:10 AM:
Get a grip...NO ONE who matters CARES
Quit trying to be a hero to nobody, MYOB, and take care of Houstons messes, there are plenty of those to go around. Such a busybody about nothing. sheesh "
nancy wrote on Sep 12, 2009 6:07 PM:
Debra Call wrote on Sep 12, 2009 3:39 PM:
nancy wrote on Sep 12, 2009 8:50 AM:
Debra Call wrote on Sep 12, 2009 4:03 AM:
nancy wrote on Sep 11, 2009 9:08 AM:
Mat-Su wrote on Sep 10, 2009 10:17 PM:
grandma wrote on Sep 10, 2009 9:39 PM:
Nancy wrote on Sep 10, 2009 8:44 PM:
nancy wrote on Sep 10, 2009 8:42 PM:
Yes many many times to all of them. At the State historical Preservation commission, OHA, Borough Planning commission, Borough historical preservation commission, Borough assembly, Knik Tribal council, Knikatnu inc. Allice and Bailey Theodore are founding members of the tribe. Alice told them first! Its been in the daily news frontiersman twice. Google the herning warehouse knik alaska. Money taliks louder than logic. We told them all and they found the graves. Good luck to all of you involved. We even showed them pictures of the marked graves in the 40s. they dont care..........................anywhere else its called graverobbing. "
Guest wrote on Sep 9, 2009 3:14 PM:
grandma wrote on Sep 6, 2009 12:24 PM:
Knik wrote on Sep 5, 2009 10:47 AM:
already? Some poor old miner from Germany probably.... And Native or not, just another American, We are all the same-o same-o.
Listen close. Do something good for your "heritage" If you believe them or any others anywhere, to be of any value to you or the community, collect them, and build a memorial on YOUR OWN LAND. You sound like a whiney old woman who thinks she is somehow "special"
DO-IT...DO-IT NOW "
grandma wrote on Sep 5, 2009 7:25 AM:
grandma wrote on Sep 4, 2009 10:14 PM:
Knik wrote on Sep 3, 2009 10:29 PM:
Star Theodore wrote on Sep 3, 2009 10:52 AM:
These graves were marked, with spirit houses, and then destroyed, and then covered with fill. Don't even go there that no one cares. We have been fighting a long time for the graves in Knik to be left alone. The "historical society cares more about old buildings than they do about history, human rights, and the well being of the community. This persons bones that was dug up more than likely passed away in 1918 from the pandemic spanish flu. I am a Theodore and I have been fighting. DO NOT DIG in Knik. "
grandma wrote on Sep 3, 2009 7:00 AM:
Knik wrote on Sep 2, 2009 11:03 PM:
Wasillaguy wrote on Sep 2, 2009 9:57 PM:
Grandma wrote on Sep 2, 2009 10:17 AM:
Knik wrote on Aug 31, 2009 10:10 PM:
Guest wrote on Aug 31, 2009 3:24 PM:
Guest wrote on Aug 31, 2009 2:29 PM:
Long Time Alaskan wrote on Aug 31, 2009 1:42 PM:
Coleen wrote on Aug 31, 2009 12:55 PM:
Alaskanwoodlandfaerie wrote on Aug 31, 2009 12:35 PM:
George wrote on Aug 31, 2009 12:12 PM:
Alaskan wrote on Aug 31, 2009 9:58 AM:
Lorianne Rawson wrote on Aug 31, 2009 9:56 AM:
nancy wrote on Aug 31, 2009 6:44 AM:
a class c felony to take the markers off of a grave. they have done it many many times thi summer. they didnt want potential excavators to be aware that there were graves. Vern Rupright should demand the return of the Herning Warehouse. Orville Herning would not want that bat infested building used as a tool to dig up his friends buried there. Maybe ill take Tim Andersons advice and Mark THEM ALL.......Knik would be lookin alot different. and you all couldn't live in denial that these important parts of history "
oldschool wrote on Aug 30, 2009 10:14 PM:
nancy wrote on Aug 30, 2009 8:31 PM:
friends of old knik wrote on Aug 30, 2009 6:43 PM:
Knik wrote on Aug 30, 2009 2:05 PM:
Becky wrote on Aug 30, 2009 9:42 AM:
I am done ranting. "
Becky wrote on Aug 30, 2009 9:38 AM:
friends of old knik wrote on Aug 30, 2009 8:35 AM:
guest wrote on Aug 30, 2009 8:14 AM:
Coleen Mielke wrote on Aug 30, 2009 1:37 AM:
Knik wrote on Aug 29, 2009 11:46 PM: