Three human skulls were sent to Brigham Young University last month via the U.S. Postal Service. The skulls themselves have now been dated, but the source of the surprising mail is still undetermined.

Broken 12th-century skulls were delivered by the U.S. Postal Service in a priority shipping mailbox on Oct. 26. The skulls were the only thing in the box mailed to BYU. They were wrapped in bubble wrap and still had some dirt on them. There was no note or explanation included in the package, BYU police Lt. Arnold Lemmon said.

‘We don’t know who sent it or why they sent it to BYU,’ Lemmon said.

The package was addressed to the BYU historical department, a department that does not exist at BYU. The package ended up at the BYU history department. The skulls were immediately turned over to the BYU police when the package was opened, according to an article published in BYU’s student newspaper, The Daily Universe, on Nov. 1. 

‘At first glance, the skulls appeared to be very, very old, so we didn’t think we had a homicide on our hands or anything like that,’ Lemmon said.

The return address of the package read ‘Jim Crow, Route 3-126, Augusta, Mont.’ That particular sender and address in Montana do not actually exist, Lemmon said.

The BYU Police Department then joined with the police force in Montana to try to find the sender.

‘We sent our reports to the sheriff of that county in Montana. They did an investigation and reported back to us,’ Lemmon said. ‘They even went to the post office to interview the postmaster, who could not remember that particular package.’

Although the skulls were sent to BYU very close to Halloween, Lemmon said he does not think Halloween had anything to do with the timing of the delivery.

The broken skulls were handed over to the Utah State Department of Archaeology and were determined to date between 1100 and 1300 A.D. The skulls are from the Fremont Native American tribe in the Utah area. The bones were also determined to come from three different skulls and not two, as originally thought.

Plans for the skulls depend on whether the tribe is interested in them.

‘They’ll contact representatives of that tribe, and if that tribe wants the skulls, they will give them to the tribe. Otherwise they’ll go into reservation storage,’ Lemmon said. 

A law passed in 1990, called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, requires any Native American remains be turned over to their people, according to the article published in BYU’s student newspaper.  

Lemmon said the skulls may have been sent to BYU in response to the act, as has happened in the past. Last year family members found a skull in their son’s room after he had moved out, were unsure of what to do with it and called BYU, Lemmon said. The university also turned the skulls over to the state archeology department in that instance, he said.

There was a federal investigation going on at the same time last year into a group of people who had been illegally collecting Native American artifacts. Lemmon said this might make people nervous about having Native American artifacts in their homes.

‘I’m guessing that this is somebody who had these three skulls and read the article last year and decided to get rid of these,’ Lemmon said. 

Lemmon said as far as BYU and the BYU Police Department are concerned, this case is closed.

‘There’s no criminal act that we can see as a police department,’ Lemmon said. ‘We’ve identified the general area where the skulls were found and where they are from, so I think it’s more of an ethical thing now for the sender to step forward.’ 

medelane@syr.edu

Published on November 16, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Meghin: medelane@syr.edu | @meghinwithani