Construction at the former Aquarena Springs amusement park has unearthed human remains believed to have been buried at the headwaters of the San Marcos River long before the first Spanish explorers set foot in what is now Texas.
Texas State archaeologist Jon C. Lohse said the bones were discovered on the peninsula that juts between Spring Lake and the Sink Creek slough but declined to say exactly where because the grave has not been excavated.
Lohse said the remains were discovered about a month ago and have not been disturbed. Because the construction site is legally a graveyard, the university must petition the county to terminate the cemetery dedication and acquire a permit to remove the remains, Lohse said.
“We can’t say much about the current remains since they’re still in the ground,” said Lohse, who is director of the university’s Center for Archaeological Studies. “I doubt [the bones] are 5,000 years old…but they are believed to be prehistoric.”
Lohse said the university will proceed “thoughtfully and carefully,” abide by state and federal law, and treat the bones and the site with respect. The remains may be re-intered somewhere at the lake once the restoration project is complete, Lohse said.
Mario Garza, board president of the San Marcos-based Indigenous Cultures Institute, agreed the remains should be re-intered but said he opposes their being examined by scientists. “According to indigenous beliefs, if the remains are disturbed, then the spirit is also disturbed. So the spirit of those remains [at Spring Lake] is not going to be at peace until they are re-interred,” Garza said, [but] “It doesn’t help us now to find out that our ancestors 2,000 years ago ate corn or cactus.”
Other discoveries in San Marcos include artifacts and food remains found in the 1970s and 80s during archaeological excavations in Spring Lake.
The creation of Spring Lake allowed archaeological artifacts within it to be protected from collectors for more than a century. Artifacts found at Spring Lake include flaked stone tools and chipping debris. Portions of mammoths, mastodons, and bison were also found.
Additionally, Lohse said three individuals and one or two elements of a fourth person — or perhaps one part of a fourth and fifth body — were discovered during archaeological excavations of the 1.25-acre “Zatopec Site” in the Purgatory Creek Natural Area in late 2007 and early 2008.
The Zatopec Site, which contained evidence of occasional prehistoric occupation throughout the last 10,000 years, included remains of a habitation, stone ovens, a weapons manufacturing area and possible storage pits. More than 140,000 artifacts were removed between 1983 and 1986 under the direction of Texas State professor James Garber, states a report by the university’s Center for Archaeological Studies.
Lohse said the human remains found at the Zatopec site and near university fish ponds are being kept at the university, which he said has the legal ability to house them in perpetuity on behalf of the State of Texas. He said the fate of the remains is not yet certain.
“I can say in cases like this one, remains are kept in storage facilities for years and years,” Lohse said. “It’s possible that a Native American tribe will approach the university one day and ask to begin consultation processes that would lead to the repatriation of those remains. Our goal at present, however, is to rebury them in the cemetery that we hope to establish at Spring Lake after the restoration project is completed. This will require much dialog with several tribes and also notification to the US Park Service, where NAGPRA [Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act] inventories are kept.”
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