An anthropologist made a surprising discovery in a Florida thrift shop’s Halloween section on Saturday, officials said.
The North Fort Myers shopper spotted a skull and recognized it as a human skull, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. Responding detectives also determined the skull belonged to a human.
The store owner said the skull had been in a storage unit that was purchased years ago, authorities said.
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office is working with the local medical examiner to run further tests on the skull. Officials do not believe the case is suspicious in nature.
It could be from a modern collector because as you mentioned, there are only a few states where it’s illegal to buy skeletal parts. My guess is that someone inherited it from an old family collection and didn’t want to deal with it.
A few generations ago it wasn’t completely unusual for a doctor to have a human skull in his office or study. Eventually Gramps dies, his kids or grandkids inherit his stuff, and now they have a skull that they might remember fondly but don’t exactly want to display in their front parlor. So they hide it away in a closet. Maybe in its carrying case, but who knows where Old Doc picked it up.
The primary concern in the article seems to be that it was from a looted native grave. That is possible, even probable, given the suspected age. Article about a prolific grave robber from Indiana.
The modern trade in legal skulls comes mostly from Asia (China and India, last time I checked). They’re also quite expensive ($2-3k), so it’s not likely a modern collector lost track of it among the contents of a storage shed.