Long Journey Home

Four decades after they were accidentally unearthed on Conn grounds, the remains of an Indigenous American have been repatriated.

By Melissa Babcock Johnson

ometime in the 16th or 17th century, an Indigenous North American individual died and was carefully buried on land near the banks of what we now call the Thames River. This ancestor, who likely descended from one of the many tribal communities who lived in the territories known today as Connecticut, would rest in peace for hundreds of years.

By 1981, European settlers and their descendants had long overtaken the area, the Industrial Revolution had given way to the Space Age and Connecticut College was celebrating 70 years since its founding. While land was being cleared to make way for a new athletic field near the campus riverfront in March of that year, a bulldozer operator inadvertently uncovered human remains.

Construction was halted temporarily upon the discovery, and Harold Juli, then an assistant professor in Conn’s Anthropology Department, was called to the scene. Certain aspects of the burial indicated to Juli that the person was likely Native American and, as was customary in anthropology at the time, he began a three-day salvage excavation to remove the bones before construction continued.

During or after 1982—no records have been found—Juli transferred the remains to Marc Kelley, a biological anthropologist specializing in the study of human bones at the University of Rhode Island. Juli and Kelley eventually co-authored a report on the discovery.

According to an article published in The Day shortly after the ancestor was unearthed, Juli said he would notify the Connecticut Indian Affairs Council about the discovery, which he did later that month. In his letter, he explained that a “prehistoric Indian” burial had been exposed, damaged and scientifically excavated.

Yet even at the time, Juli seemed to sense that longstanding anthropological practices would eventually need to be rethought.

“Connecticut Indians have become concerned about what happens to the bones of their ancestors after chance excavations,” Day reporter Steven Slosberg wrote at the time. “Juli said the potential exists for argument over whether the remains should be reinterred or preserved for scientific and historic value.”

In the end, it would take more than 40 years, a federal push and a stroke of luck to bring the ancestor home.

Francis Sesenaya ’24 sifts soil from a test pit. Conn students regularly participate in formal archaeological site surveys and data collection.

National Reckoning

Across the United States, Indigenous remains and artifacts were historically treated as objects to collect, study and even display. Descendants of native people have long pushed back, arguing tribes should be consulted on the care of their unearthed ancestors and remains should be repatriated whenever possible. Yet for most of U.S. history, there weren’t any laws protecting Indigenous remains or established protocols for returning them to their tribes.

That changed in 1990, when Congress created a roadmap to navigate these emotionally fraught situations with the passing of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The law states that human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects or objects of cultural patrimony determined to be of Native American or Native Hawaiian origin must be returned to the tribe or organization from which they originate, if that can be determined. The law also established procedures that institutions receiving federal funding must follow if Indigenous remains are unearthed on their property, or if a federally funded institution takes control of the remains, and called for all remains and associated funerary objects to be inventoried in consultation with potentially affiliated tribes by 1995.

But adherence has been slow, hindered by lack of funding and staffing, poor historic record keeping and the general difficulty of establishing a link to a specific tribe. In September 2023, the United States Department of the Interior’s NAGPRA Review Committee reported to Congress that just 54.8% of the 213,466 Indigenous remains reported had been repatriated in the 33 years since NAGPRA’s passing.

Some institutions had attempted to skirt the law by designating much or all of their related collections as “culturally unidentifiable.” A January 2024 amendment to NAGPRA does away with this designation option, stating institutions and federal agencies must defer to the Native American traditional knowledge of lineal descendants, tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations when attempting to determine the origin of unearthed bones or artifacts. Under the amendment, institutions must also obtain “free, prior and informed consent” from these groups before displaying objects or conducting research on human remains and cultural items.

The independent, nonprofit newsroom ProPublica reported in 2023 in its Repatriation Project that just 10 institutions hold about half of the reported Native American remains in the U.S. that have not been made available for return to tribes. In March of 2023, nearly 90% of the approximately 204 unreturned remains taken from sites across Connecticut were located at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven. On its website, the museum states it has increased staff and funding to support its extensive and ongoing repatriation efforts.

Once the repatriation process started, one of the more immediate tasks I set out to address was whether there were more ancestors needing care.

— Professor and College Archaeologist Anthony Graesch

A Rightful Return

For years, no one knew what had become of the ancestor unearthed at Connecticut College. Juli and Kelley both died in 2007, and knowledge of the ancestor’s whereabouts disappeared with them.

But in November of 2022, Fiona Jones, then the NAGPRA coordinator at URI, came upon a box of remains in an archaeological repository. The only external label read “CC7,” and there wasn’t much else to go on. Yet Jones, who had previously assessed some of Juli’s work at a different institution, thought she recognized Juli’s labeling method. Another clue was a small piece of paper that noted a date from March of 1981 and an identified quadrant, which archaeologists use as a measurement of excavation.

“This led me to believe that this was most likely the work of a professional archaeologist in March of 1981 and Harold Juli—and therefore, Connecticut College—could have been involved,” said Jones.

She contacted Conn’s Associate Professor of Anthropology and College Archaeologist Anthony Graesch, and the two compared the description of the box’s contents with Juli’s lab notes about the remains unearthed on Conn grounds to officially confirm Jones’s hunch.

“It was definitely a feeling of relief,” said Jones, who recently left URI to pursue a Ph.D. in anthropology at Syracuse University. “Unfortunately, it can happen that human remains become unidentifiable and end up staying at the institution. When I first started inventorying CC7, I really thought that might be the case.”

Graesch, who had long hoped the ancestor might someday be found, immediately contacted Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Michael Kickingbear Johnson and Mohegan Tribal Historic Preservation Officer James Quinn to inform them that their tribes could begin the process of repatriation. At long last, the ancestor was repatriated and laid to rest in November 2023.

“Sadly, it’s pretty common where an ancestor who was unearthed ends up miles and miles away from their original homeland. The goal is to have these ancestors returned,” Johnson said. “Through the process of repatriation, we eventually know our ancestors are home, safe and respectfully at rest as originally intended.”

A TerraSearch Geophysical employee surveys the athletic fields near Conn’s waterfront.

A New Way Forward

In the summer of 2022, shortly before the ancestor was rediscovered at URI, dead ash trees were removed from Conn’s waterfront. During the process, no human remains were uncovered, but an archaeological site was unintentionally disturbed.

That incident spurred Conn to create the college archaeologist position and institute new processes to protect important archaeological sites and cultural heritage resources, including several dozen known Indigenous and settler-colonist burials near the Thames River waterfront.

As the inaugural college archaeologist, Graesch serves as a consultant to help minimize the likelihood of damaging or destroying archaeological resources, works to build ongoing heritage-related curriculum and education at Conn, and develops and deepens relationships with tribal historic preservation officers.

Interim Vice President for Administration Justin Wolfradt says his team now works with Graesch and Arboretum Director Maggie Redfern at the outset of campus projects.

“Through this collaboration, we were able to identify and preserve the majority of a historically significant rock wall while designing the new East Lot, which relocates faculty and staff parking to enable the Crozier Boulevard Pedestrian Promenade and Crozier-Plex Pedestrian Connector projects,” Wolfradt said. “This partnership allows us to work together to find ways to make campus improvements, while at the same time mitigating the impacts to important cultural and natural resources wherever possible.”

Advances in technology are also helping to usher in a new era of non-invasive archaeological study. For example, one of Graesch’s first actions as college archaeologist was to apply for a Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office grant in early 2023 to help fund a geophysical survey of the area where the ancestor was discovered in 1981.

“Once the repatriation process started, one of the more immediate tasks I set out to address was whether there were more ancestors needing care,” Graesch explained.

To complete the study, the College partnered with TerraSearch Geophysical, a company known for their expertise and training in ethical archaeological practice.

“They used non-invasive ground-penetrating radar and magnetometry to determine the presence or absence of subsurface cultural features, including human burials,” Graesch said. “Conn students from multiple classes had the opportunity to visit the site and were introduced to the methods of geophysical survey, and several students participated in data collection.”

We’re not necessarily trying to stop development, but many tribes look out for their interests in these culturally sensitive areas.

—Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Michael Kickingbear Johnson

The surveys, conducted in October and November of 2023, revealed at least 10 features below one of the athletic fields, most or all of which are highly likely to be burials, Graesch said.

Dean of Students Victor Arcelus, who oversees Athletics and partnered with Graesch’s team and the Dean of the Faculty division to support the surveys, said that as a result of the discovery, varsity track and field javelin and discus throwing events are being relocated and club rugby will no longer play on the field. “We are committed to partnering with our tribal neighbors to respectfully care for any Indigenous human remains and artifacts on our campus, and we want to reduce the risk of them being disrupted in the future,” he said.

TerraSearch returned to campus in summer of 2024 to conduct three new geophysical surveys, and the data from those surveys are still being processed. Johnson says the tribes realize that most burials are disturbed unintentionally and welcome this non-invasive approach to archaeology and campus planning.

“We’re not necessarily trying to stop development, but many tribes look out for their interests in these culturally sensitive areas,” he said. “From cultural stone landscapes to highly sensitive places such as a burial site, if we can develop a respectful and constructive working relationship with a university, that is the best outcome.”

In May, Graesch organized the first summit on campus for Connecticut College senior administrators, faculty and staff and ambassadors from local Connecticut tribes. The summit focused on how the College stewards Indigenous cultural heritage as well as the opportunities for education and research collaborations centering on Indigenous history, culture and the unresolved process of colonialism, Graesch said. “At the core of the conversation were issues of racial justice, cultural respect, sovereignty, reconciliation and legal and ethical obligations. It was a remarkably powerful and impactful meeting.”

Johnson, who attended the summit, said the area’s tribes appreciate their growing partnership with the College.

“We would like to continue building a relationship with Conn and other institutions, including seeking opportunities to educate the public about our unique Indigenous cultures,” he said, adding that he can only speculate on the life led by the ancestor now returned to a rightful resting place.

“Our ancestors walked these lands since time immemorial. When people are buried, it’s with a purpose, and we always hope that they lived a good life. Like other families, we just want them to be able to rest in peace.”

The Thames River region is the ancestral home of several Connecticut tribes. Nationally, the remains of 96,488 Native Americans had yet to be repatriated as of September 2023. Photo courtesy the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.