The Texas Historical Commission now plans to investigate how a local man was able to pick up human bones from a burial site unearthed by construction on the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum campus, the director of the commission’s archaeology division said Monday.

Commission officials will also review whether other planned construction projects at the site should proceed, said the director, James Bruseth.

Controversy arose last week after Gholson resident Richard Thompson took bones from the site. He said he found them sticking out of dirt piles and lying on the ground. That disturbed him, he said, so he took the bones to ensure they were properly handled.

Thompson, who said he gathered the bones “like peanuts at the circus,” has since given the bones to local law enforcement, likely resolving what could have been criminal charges against him for removing the remains. But questions remain about how he could access the bones in the first place.

No bones should have been left exposed at the site, Bruseth said. The fact Thompson says he found them that way points to a potential problem, he said.

But Bruseth cautioned that his agency must investigate further to learn what happened. He said he fully believes museum staff and city officials want to handle the bones properly.

The bottom line, Bruseth said, is that everyone must be on the same page on how to accomplish that.

“We don’t ever want to repeat that,” Bruseth said, referring to the bones being left where someone could easily collect them without authorization. “From this point forward, we’re not going to let that happen.”

That could mean other expansion projects at the museum might not proceed as planned, Bruseth said. Such predictions are preliminary at this point, he said, because the commission is still evaluating museum plans and how they might affect burial sites in the area.

In general, the Texas Historical Commission doesn’t look favorably upon building on areas housing graves, he said.

The popular museum complex sits on land that was once home to two burial sites — an abandoned Masonic cemetery and a pauper’s burial ground. By the time the museum was built in the late 1960s, both had fallen into such disrepair that hardly any graves could be identified. With a court order, the city removed remains that could be found in the area, reburying them at other local cemeteries.

But officials didn’t find all the bones. This spring, construction crews found more while excavating for utility lines for a building that will house the new headquarters of the local Texas Rangers company as well as an educational center.

Since then, museum officials and an archaeologist hired by the city have worked with the historical commission to properly remove, study and rebury the bones. But whether all parties understood the plan is something Bruseth is checking.

When Bruseth visited the site about three weeks ago, there were no exposed bones, he said. If there had been, the commission would have produced a plan to address them. Instead, the commission told the museum to stop digging and not disturb any remains still in the ground until a plan to handle them could be crafted, he said.

The museum stopped digging at the commission’s request, museum director Byron Johnson said. But it was also told not to touch piles of dirt that had been dug up from the area until an archaeologist could sift through them in search of remains, he said.

That’s why there were bones visible in the piles, Johnson said. As for other bones Thompson gathered, some were in a box in a trench. They had been collected from that trench, Johnson said, and that’s why they were left there.

Yet other bones Thompson found came loose during heavy rains, Johnson said. Contrary to Thompson’s claims, they were not haphazardly left in the open. Instead, they were being collected by construction workers who gave them to museum staff for proper documentation, Johnson said. Such collections have been a near-daily occurrence because of plentiful rainfall, he said.

Thompson’s impromptu collection was not only illegal, Johnson said, but counterproductive to what Thompson has said was his motivation — proper treatment of the remains. By collecting them as he did, he likely made it virtually impossible for officials to properly care for them, he said.

Johnson noted that the area was fenced off. Officials never expected someone to trespass and remove bones, he said.

“He might as well have gone in there with a bulldozer,” Johnson said. “No matter if his intentions were the best, he basically vandalized an archaeological site.”

The museum doesn’t anticipate problems with its plans for future construction, which includes expanding its banquet hall and library, Johnson said. All of the areas it plans to build on have had structures placed over them before, he said.

However, Johnson said the museum wants to pursue its plans correctly and will work with the historical commission to ensure that, even if those plans must be revamped.

cculp@wacotrib.com

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