The skeleton discovered by a streamer near Nancy Guthrie’s home earlier this month is from a different era and could actually be up to 1,000 years old, according to an expert.
Ceramics and other artifacts analyzed alongside the remains are consistent with ancient Native American settlements in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, James T. Watson, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona, told FOX.
“All of that contextual evidence allowed me to be pretty sure that this individual was in fact Native American,” Watson said.
“The ceramics really sort of drove home that point.”
The skeleton is considered “prehistoric” because it’s older than any recorded written language in the area.
All materials at the gravesite were delivered to the Tohono O’odham Nation, a Native American tribe located to the west of Tucson — no further testing or research is expected.
Real estate development and the Sonoran Desert’s harsh terrain can shift ground previously untouched for centuries, which often leads to similar discoveries.
“There are literally probably hundreds of bodies that are discovered every year out in the desert,” Watson said.
The factors driving these discoveries are remarkably vast.
“So there [are] a lot of places that an individual could get lost or pass away — or hide a body,” Watson said.
“I think…as people start to poke into some of these crevices that don’t normally get poked into across the desert, they’re likely to find more individuals.”
The burial site was initially discovered by amateur investigator and livestreamer AJ Wysopal just five miles from Guthrie’s home in the Catalina Foothills in early May.
However, authorities quickly determined the remains were far older than the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie.