Skulls, bones buried in NJ neighborhood with Native American street names

✅ A work crew digging a foundation uncovered the remains Monday

✅ Residents say tools and glass medicine vials have been dug up in the past

✅ Lenni Lenape Native Americans lived in the area centuries ago

WALL — An investigation continues into the discovery of skeletal remains at an excavation project Tuesday afternoon which neighbors say could have a historical background.

Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago said "a portion of skeletal remains" were found in the side yard of a home on Narrumson Road where a foundation was being dug. Santiago did not disclose the nature of the remains pending forensic analysis.

The prosecutor did not have an update on the investigation Thursday morning.

Bob Wiley of Wiley Paving told the Asbury Park Press that “three skulls and a lot of bones” were found within 2-5 feet of each other where his crew was digging. Two of the skulls were larger than the third, according to Wiley.

The owner of the property just celebrated the construction of a new house with a groundbreaking for Sunday, a resident told NBC 4 New York.

County public works personnel brought in diggers and dump trucks to remove mounds of dirt and bring it to another location so it could be sifted and tested, according to PIX 11.

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A burial ground uncovered?

Given the names of the streets in the neighborhood like Minnehaha Trail, Lenape Trail and Algonkin Trail, neighbors told PIX 11 that the area may have included a burial ground. During past excavation projects items such as tools and glass medicine vials have been dug up.

The land incorporated by the New Jersey Legislature in 1851 as Wall Township was inhabited by the Lenni Lenape, an Algonquian group of Native Americans who lived in loosely-knit family groups in the greater Delaware area, according to township historian Alyce Salmon. They were present when the first European settlers

Sand Hill Indians lived on the northern shores of Monmouth County in the 1700s, according to the Sand Hill Indian History website.

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