A YouTuber who stumbled upon a human bone this month while searching a few miles from Nancy Guthrie’s home in Arizona did not discover a crime scene, but a set of remains thought to date back around 750 years, according to police and an archaeological expert who reviewed the discovery.
AJ Wysopal, a Tucson resident who is among several individuals and groups to join the search for Guthrie after being drawn to the case of her kidnapping, was filming on his phone as he hiked through a dry riverbed the morning of May 7.
“I’m pretty sure that’s a bone,” Wysopal, 38, told people watching his live stream when he came across a white object sticking out from the dirt. “What the heck?”
Wysopal poked at the bone with a hiking stick and tried to dig around it. He then stopped and called 911. Viewers left a torrent of comments on the YouTube stream, reacting in shock — “BODY,” “wow good job,” “I have the chills.”
Police and reporters flocked to the scene, eager for an update in the Guthrie case that has stunned the country since the 84-year-old mother to “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie was abducted from her Tucson home in February.
But the discovery was not the breakthrough some had hoped for.
Pima County’s medical examiner’s office quickly determined that the remains were too old to be from a recent death, according to James Watson, a curator of bioarcheology at the Arizona State Museum who inspected the remains. Tucson police said in a statement to The Washington Post that the bone was not part of a crime scene.
Watson said the bone had been buried at least three feet below the ground surface (he suspects rainwater in the area could have exposed the bone) and that the riverbed is near a known archaeological site. He surmised the remains dated to between 650 and 1250 A.D. and probably belonged to a member of the Hohokam people, an ancient group considered to be ancestors to modern Native Americans in Arizona.
Watson’s assessment was first reported by the New York Times.
The Hohokam, described by the National Park Service as “one of the largest and most complex societies in the Southwest,” were prolific farmers who used sophisticated canals to irrigate the Arizona desert, Watson said. The discovery of their remains in a riverbed likely reflected a Hohokam community that once lived near the water, he said.
Watson added that he thought it was unfortunate that the centuries-old remains had been uncovered in a private search for Guthrie, particularly for the Tohono O’odham Nation, the descendants of the Hohokam.
“It is [a] disturbance of their ancestors, just like if a modern cemetery got dug up,” he said.
An official with the Tohono O’odham Nation did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Wysopal said he did not know the area he was searching, around a 10-minute drive from Guthrie’s home, was near an archaeological site and didn’t intend to disturb it. He has kept up his live-streamed searches for Guthrie out of frustration that her case remains unsolved and a desire to help, he said.
“I try to do things the right way,” Wysopal said.
The commotion on May 7 as police and reporters descended on the riverbed drew the attention of Pamela Stone, who lives near where the bone was discovered.
Stone, 73, said she was shocked by the discovery and feared for a moment that it was linked to Guthrie’s case, which has unsettled her community since the abduction. She was saddened to learn where the remains actually came from.
“It brings tears to my eyes,” Stone said. “These are human beings that walked on this earth hundreds and hundreds of years ago.”
Watson said the remains, which were retrieved by the Arizona State Museum, are being repatriated to the Tohono O’odham Nation.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement to The Post that searching for Guthrie “is best left to professionals.”
Wysopal was back out in the desert Thursday morning, continuing his search for an audience of about 1,200 viewers on YouTube. Around two hours into his live stream, he came across what appeared to be several pieces of bone scattered in the grass.
“It looks like it’s a deer or a cow,” Wysopal told his viewers.
The post Bone found by YouTuber searching for Nancy Guthrie was around 750 years old appeared first on Washington Post.
