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Waterloo University is set to repatriate a box of 18th-century bone fragments to a New York community that did not even know the bones were missing.

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The bones came from Fort William Henry, a former British fort that was the scene of a brutal massacre of British troops by Huron warriors during the Seven Years’ War, an events depicted in the film The Last of the Mohicans.

Following a 1950s archaeological dig, the dug-up skeletons of the dead British soldiers were put on display as part of a full-scale reconstruction of the fort, which is located in Lake George, New York.

However, in 1993, local officials decided to rebury the bodies in a Memorial Day ceremony. At the time, organizers neglected to mention that some of the bones remained in archaeology labs in Arizona and Waterloo, Ontario.

“We didn’t make an issue out of it,” Robert F. Flacke Sr., longtime president of the Fort William Henry Corp., told an Associated Press reporter.

When news of the missing bones broke earlier this year, the community struck a campaign to have the remains returned.



National Post