A Maryland man recently made a remarkable discovery in the Chesapeake Bay: an almost-whole human skeleton that appears to be at least a century old.
NBC Washington reported George Oliver, who lives in Calvert County, Maryland, was walking the shores of the bay on Nov. 4, looking for fossils, as he usually does.
That’s when he spotted a coffin during low tide. And inside the coffin was a nearly whole human skeleton.
Oliver told the station that he could see the coffin but that it was submerged in water. He called the sheriff’s department, which then called an archaeological society.
Officials examined the remains in the coffin but did not remove any, NBC Washington reported.
Oliver took it upon himself to carefully remove the skeleton and dig up the coffin because he was worried about what might happen to the remains if he left them there, according to NBC Washington. The station also reported that Oliver pieced the coffin back together himself.
“When I first found it, you could not tell that there was human remains,” he told NBC Washington. “You just thought that it was full of beach sand.”
Oliver turned the remains over to the Calvert County Sheriff’s office.
Kelcey Ward, a crime scene technician with the sheriff’s office, told NBC Washington that it is not rare to find human remains that are so old but that to find an entire skeleton that is still intact is highly unusual.
In fact, it is not Oliver’s first discovery of human remains — NBC Washington reported that he found a leg bone about 15 years ago near the same location. When he found the coffin, Oliver assumed that leg bone might have been a part of the newly discovered skeleton.
Ward said it’s “probably the most we’ve had of one body,” according to the station. She said it was likely that the skeleton was still intact because it was found in the coffin.
A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment and more information about the discovery.
NBC Washington reported that based on the construction of the coffin and the condition of the bones, the skeleton appears to be at least 100 years old, but it remains a mystery where they came from.
Ward said she was not able to determine the age, race or gender of the skeleton, but she had an idea how the person died.
“We did think it was quite interesting that he had a kind of a defect to his skull here,” Ward said. “See, if I was working this as a more recent case and I found that, I would venture to guess maybe a gunshot wound or blunt force trauma of some sort, but obviously not having the rest of the skull makes that kind of difficult.”
NBC Washington reported that the bones and the coffin will be reinterred at a local church cemetery.
Oliver, on the other hand, thinks the coffin should be displayed, he told the station, because “this is somebody’s craftsmanship.”
“It’s a shame that it had to happen the way it happened,” he said. “But I think it’s awesome that we found him or her, and now they’ll be able to rest.”