Ali Erturk, a Salt Lake City ninth?grader, was in the middle of building a backyard trout pond for his dad when he stumbled upon what he thought was an animal bone. Digging deeper, Erturk ran into another piece of bone, but this time it was clearly a human skull. Local officials have since confirmed that Erturk discovered an archeological site containing .
“When I saw it looked like a human skull, then it definitely was a bit creepy. ¡ It kind of stayed in the back of my mind even when I wasn’t digging the pond, going to sleep, it was in the back of my mind that it was human remains,” .
The Utah Department of Heritage spent most of Friday at the site, confirming that the bones dated back some 1,000 years and likely belonged to an American Indian from the region.
Erturk stumbled upon the archeological site when he was expanding a section of the pond to make it a bit deeper. He noticed the first bone about .
American Indian remains aren’t uncommon in Utah¡ªgroups like the Shoshone and the Utes have lived there for 10,000 years¡ªbut private-property findings are always a bonus.