A walk on the sand turned unsettling for an Orange County woman after she discovered what appeared to be part of a human skull along the shoreline.
Katherine Kinnison, a San Clemente resident, said she was walking near Linda Lane Beach on Wednesday when an unusual object protruding from the sand caught her attention.
At first, she believed the item — the lower portion of a jawbone with four teeth still in place — might have come from a marine animal, but she soon realized it appeared to be human.
“I had this thought, ‘Don’t touch it and go alert somebody,’” Kinnison told The California Post.
Kinnison said she has walked that stretch of beach many times, but nothing she has encountered there has compared to this discovery.
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“I found seal bones in the past and parts of different fish vertebrae,” Kinnison explained. “I still don’t think I have processed what it is.”
After spotting the bone, Kinnison alerted nearby lifeguards, who then reached out to the sheriff’s department.
An Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson said the skull fragment has been turned over to the coroner’s office, which is coordinating with the Native American Heritage Committee.
“They do believe it’s of Native American heritage,” Sgt. Lizbeth Gwisdalla told The Post. “And they do not believe it is anything suspicious or malicious.”
Kinnison cited a combination of recent high tides and sand replacement for potentially unearthing the jawbone.
The area of Orange County where Kinnison made the discovery was once home to the Native American group of the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation.
The California Post contacted the Native American Heritage Committee for comment.
