Found bones in an old church porch, should I report it?

[IsitaHatOrACat]

On a walk at the weekend I explored an old (unused) church and graveyard. These bones were sitting in the church porch. Any advice? It seems a bit off to just ignore them. Has this ever happened to anyone else and did you do anything about it?

Well sort of. Churchyards are absolutely packed full of bones. If you put a spade (or a rabbit) into the ground, you’ll get old bones out.

But a fresh set, let alone a whole corpse, in a disused churchyard would stand out.

These aren’t fresh, though. And no effort was made to conceal them. Rather someone has helpfully put them into the porch so they’ll be noticed and reburied.

It’s the collapsing vaults that are the most horror story-esque…

They may well have a conscience and placed the bones there for a reason. Loads of murders are not solved but family still have the heart break.

Not really for you to decide. Let the experts know and let them deal with it.

It’s about a million times more likely that the rabbits in this churchyard brought up some of the tens of thousands of bones that are in its soil than that the family of a murderer decided to carry parts of a few fragmented long bones from a long dead victim and place them in the porch of a disused church.

Viscera are what we have and skeletons don't...

They are lined up so nicely. A rabbit does not have that sense of propriety.

No, someone has moved them to the porch.

But the question of where they came from is easily answered since the church is surrounded by an old churchyard with noticeable signs of rabbit digging.

Just sometimes you've got to look at the balance of probabilities!

If you see a red puddle of liquid... on the floor... in the kitchen... of a pizza restaurant... is it fresh human blood?!

Op is literally in a graveyard and these bones have no flesh on them. She has not found a murdered body!

Are you in a town or more remote location?

It's in the countryside. I'm 99.9% sure the bones are what remains of many years worth of roast dinners lol.

"Once there was a teeny tiny lady and she lived in a teeny tiny house outside a teeny tiny village and she lived with her teeny tiny dog and her teeny tiny cat. One day the teeny tiny lady decided to go to the teeny tiny village to market. On her way home she saw a teeny tiny bone in a teeny tiny field, so..."
Teeny Tiny Lady | USC Digital Folklore Archives https://share.google/5tAJPzhy97UaY21tB

I work as a coroner’s officer and you’d be surprised how often this happens. You’ve done the right thing contacting the police.

If it surrounds me with buried bones, it’s a current graveyard.

Does the name of your village start with “Midsomer?”

Cully! What are you doing here?

Such quick wit. I obviously meant one not in current use for ongoing burials. Only old bones in there

Slim pickings, not much to gnaw on

Yep. I'll have to sleep on this and I'll be back. Back femur of those puns

Bone nuit.

Tibia-nest, I was dead certain about those bones from the start, so let's lay that to rest, bury our differences and dig up the puns.

It's time for breakfast eggs so I'll just put the skelet-on the hob...

😆

“Bone thing still bothers me…”

https://hotcore.info/act/kareff-072024p.html

I was volunteering at an archeological dig at a historical site years ago and we found human remains. They people in charge of the dig knew that the remains were from the English civil war era, but they also knew that they had a formal duty to report them to the police.

Cue suspension of the dig and a few bobbies bobbing around and filling in paperwork for a few hours.

Glad you reported, OP. Hope the outcome is interesting and not distressing - ie old bones somehow unintentionally disturbed from a proper resting place.

Yes, if you find human remains or suspected human remains on an archaeological dig you have to get permission to continue to excavate them.

Just like you should call the police if you find some in your garden.

But that’s not the same as noticing a few loose bones in a graveyard.