Northern Nevada mining history...and 150 year old human remains!

Battleborn_JKU · Oct 22, 2018

(I apologize in advance for the configuration of the pics. Not sure how that happened) My detecting partner and I were scouring the hills outside Virginia City, Nevada today and located the ruins of an 1860's Comstock era silver mill that we had spotted on Google Earth. Found nothing but old iron scrap, until I started exploring some old clay mine railings left over from pumping water out of the mine over a century and a half ago! In the clay, I located two complete fire assay crucibles, two broken, and three complete smaller sample crucibles, part of a chemist's glass beaker, and a brass button, with tan denim still attached! Later, we were exploring a permission dump site behind Virginia City's first hospital. Tons of period glass and crockery, including some beautiful hand painted Chinese finger bowls from Virhinia City's China Town. The Chinese were employed as miners and laborers, but lived separately from the white population. I've long suspected that, given the 1860's standard for the hospital's disposal of medical waste being what it was, that there would likely be human remains in the dump. The bone pictured was one of two that I located. It's been identified by a medical professional as the interphalangeal joint of a human thumb, specifically, the middle joint of the three separate bones that comprise the thumb joint! The second bone, not pictured, is sadly, the deformed humerus of what was likely an under-developed infant! The bones will be donated to the hospital museum later this week.