Skulls Buried in Florida Backyard Date to 1200 AD

Investigators have no idea how Inca skulls got there
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 15, 2012 4:40 AM CDT
Florida Backyard Skulls Date to 1200 AD
An Inca skull covered in clay on display in Lima, Peru.   (Getty Images)

Police in Florida investigating two skulls found in a backyard say that while they definitely have a mystery on their hands, they're not looking for a killer. That's because investigators have determined that the skulls belong to a man and a 10-year-old boy who died in Peru as far back as some 800 years ago, ABC reports. The skulls, one of which had a scrap of mummified flesh still clinging to it, were uncovered by a workman installing a pool, who notified police.

Shards of pottery and textiles were found with the bones, along with part of a newspaper from 1978. "The mystery is how they ended up there," a medical examiner says. "We don't have any way of finding out." She speculates that the skulls may have been brought back from South America by a tourist who later buried them, or brought to the US by the migrant workers who camped in the area for decades before it was sold to developers in the mid-1980s. More research is planned, but authorities plan to eventually return the skulls to Peru. (More archaeology stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X