Not what you typically find when hunting for seashells. Photo: ABC7//screenshot
Southern California beachgoers typically sift through sand and kelp to find shells, sea glass, sand dollars, and maybe the occasional broken fin from a surfboard. But as a flurry of south swells has shifted sand around California beaches, last week, one woman was stunned when she discovered human remains exposed on a San Clemente Beach.
According to an article in ABC7, Katherine Kinnison, visiting from New York, noticed a human jawbone with several teeth attached while strolling on Linda Lane Beach.
Kinnison said she didn’t believe it was human at first glance, but the more she examined it, the more confident she became that it belonged to a human. She reported the bone to a lifeguard tower.
The coroner division of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department collected the sample and determined that it was not relevant to any active investigations. Instead, they determined that the bones were ancient, believed to be of Native American ancestry. The Juaneño Band of Mission Indians inhabited the land before the arrival of Europeans.
The remains were transferred to the Native American Heritage Commission.
“I hope that we can maybe figure out if it’s male or female, how old it was, or if there’s any way to link it, if they knew anything more about the people at that time,” Kinnison told ABC7.
