College students dig trying to identify bones

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Assistant professor of anthropology Valerie Andrushko, left, discusses the identifications of human skull bones with students Erica Donofrio, of Danbury, center,b and MaryAnn Viera, of Milford, in her human osteology class at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. The bones were discovered by workers at Sturges Park in Fairfield, the site of a church graveyard from the early 18th century.

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"It's just water," said the 22-year-old senior at Southern Connecticut State University. "Any other agent, and the bone might just disintegrate. It's hard. You don't know whether it's dirt on your hands or bone chipping off."

The bone fragments that Betz, a Milford resident, and classmates have been trying to identify come from Fairfield residents who died in the 1700s and were buried in what later became Sturges Park.

The remains were accidentally dug up in August 2006 by a contractor working on a regrading project in the park.

The bones are believed to be from former Trinity Church members because the church was built in 1725 on Mill Plain Road, and used the present-day site of Sturges Park as a burial ground.

Trinity moved seven headstones, but not graves, to the Old Burying Ground on Beach Road in 1881, according to documents at the Fairfield Museum and History Center. The parish's sanctuary is now in the Southport section of town.

Now, the advanced anthropology students in Valerie Andrushko's osteology course are trying to determine, if they can, who the bones belong to before they are reburied this summer.

"It's kind of phenomenal," Betz said of the opportunity the students have.

"This is just such a wonderful project for them to work on," Andrushko said. "It's terrific training."

Dan Corvino, 22, a senior from

"I just cleaned a rock," Corvino said, with a laugh.

"We're not experts," he said, but added that many of the bone fragments were misidentified by those who dug them up.

Using a human skeleton, photographs and "bone clones," the students painstakingly debated and questioned whether a finger bone was from a right or left hand or a piece of skull came from the front or the back of the head.

"This is what I want everyone to be doing," Andrushko said. "Deducing."

When students got stuck, Andrushko gave them a nudge or two.

"Where would you have flatness and then a margin?" she asked the crew examining the skull fragments.

At another table, students looked at much smaller bone pieces.

"This one has a lot of possibilities," said Samara Zuniga, 24, a senior from New Haven, as her group examined what appeared to be bits of vertebrae.

"I'd say it's most likely a lumbar," Zuniga said, comparing it to a model. "You can kind of see that shape." Diana Messer, 21, a junior from Redding, said the class was prepared for its task.

"We've been drilled" on the different human bones, she said.

Andrushko said the students don't know whether they'll be able to determine the exact identities of the remains, but hope to at least be able to say which of the people originally buried at Sturges they could be.

"Maybe we can say, 'It's a male between the ages of 35 and 45,' " she said. "If we had three males all in the their mid-30s, we might not be able to say much more than that, but we can at least say, 'This is who it could be.' "

The students will also determine how many different people the bones come from.

"This is a very dedicated bunch," Andrushko said of her students. "The come in outside of class."

According to the Rev. Nicholas Porter, pastor of Trinity Episcopal Church, he and other residents who have been appointed to take charge of the remains met last week to discuss final plans for the remains' re-burial.

The general plan now is to inter the bones on the grounds of the church on Pequot Avenue.

When the bones are reburied, a service would be conducted similar to those when the church members were alive.