Workers digging into some delivered soil at the American Bald Eagle Foundation this week at first thought they’d found a coconut shell.

Then someone guessed it was a clay bowl. Foundation raptor curator Chloe Goodson joked that it might be a skull.

That’s exactly what it turned out to be.

Goodson, intern Maggie Hughes and raptor handler Samantha Wilson were shoveling a freshly-delivered pile of soil for construction of a new aviary on Monday when they discovered the partial skull, which local archeologist Dr. Anastasia Wiley has identified as belonging to a Native female who was at least 40 years old and died before the 1700s.

Turner Construction delivered the dirt to the eagle foundation. It had been excavated from Jack Smith Jr.’s gravel pit near 7 Mile Haines Highway. Smith declined to provide specifics about the location where the fill was removed, and has left the area unmarked so people won’t disturb it before archaeologists can get to it.

Hughes, the intern, struck the skull with her shovel around 3 p.m. “At first I didn’t know what it was, so I was hitting it with the shovel trying to break it apart. And then I realized it wasn’t breaking apart,” she said.

The group conferred for a minute or so, and Hughes Google searched “human skull” on her phone. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s a human skull.’ I was in total denial about it, actually. I was like, ‘There is no way. There is no way.’”

The three women ran inside and notified executive director Cheryl McRoberts, who called police. The police called Wiley, who holds a Ph.D in archeology from the University of Pennsylvania.

The fragment consists of the upper skull – the cranium to about the upper part of the eye sockets, Wiley said.

Wiley determined the skull likely belonged to a Native woman, based on the pronounced brow ridges and spacing between the temples. She estimated the age by examining the development of the cranial plates, which fuse earlier in life and solidify as a person grows older.

“The closer you are to 25, the more fragile the skull is, and the older you become, it becomes rock solid,” she said.

The skull, which was caked in dirt, was found about 12 feet below ground, she said. Based on that depth and how well-preserved and dense the bone was, she approximated the woman died before the 1700s.

“As oil and minerals get absorbed into the bone over time, the bone becomes more and more dense and heavier,” Wiley said. “Given the fact it was found deep and it’s very heavy dense bone, the chances are good that it is very old.”

Wiley, who has studied old Native village sites in the valley including the settlement of Klucktoo near 19 Mile Haines Highway, said the seemingly isolated skull wasn’t found near any historic site she is aware of.

Wiley speculated the skull might have been carried away from a burial site when the Chilkat River eroded its banks, depositing the bone away from the rest of the skeleton.

“There may be no one else (buried at the 7 Mile site). This could be all there is,” she said.

Wiley said she and a local archeological monitor will sift through the dirt pile at the eagle foundation to search for more remains or artifacts. When remains are discovered, the State Medical Examiner’s Office needs to be notified to determine if the bones are possibly related to a homicide.

Until the state signs off, the skull will remain at the police station and people are not allowed to disturb the scene. Wiley hopes she will be able to go out Friday or Monday to sift through the dirt pile and examine the area near 7 Mile.

Haines Borough interim police chief Robert Griffiths said the department is in touch with local tribal governments to determine what will happen to the skull once it is released by the medical examiner’s office.

Wiley said the find highlights the importance of having archeological monitors give input on projects like the Haines Highway realignment. “That’s one reason why the whole highway process is taking a while is because cultural resources is a part of it,” she said. “It becomes more and more difficult when you find things like this.”

“The number of burials that are known is nothing compared to the thousands of people who lived here and buried their people here,” she said.