Tuesday morning in the Transbay Transit Center construction site, a crew preparing to pour a concrete foundation unearthed "an old but well-preserved human skeleton" determined to be of American-Indian descent. Now that the massive future transit hub is literally being built on the final resting place of one of San Francisco's forebears, construction crews will be treading lightly for a time.
The skeleton was reportedly found sixty feet below street level near the Fremont Street side of the four-block site. The medical examiner's office determined the ethnicity of the remains and officials at the site reached out to the Native American Heritage Commission, as is standard practice. The Commission will appoint a representative or most likely descendant to determine whether the remains will stay in place at the site or if they'll be moved to a different location. If the representative decides the remains should stay, then the city will get a spooky story to blame any construction mishaps on for years to come.
In the meantime, work continues at the Transbay site—outside of a 100-foot radius around the remains, that is. In 2012, construction workers also dug up a wooly mammoth tooth at the site. At a shallower depth, gold rush-era artifacts have been turning up since the project began.
