The long legal battle has ended over the 2.5 acres where the skeleton of the 9,500-year-old "Leanderthal Lady" was discovered in the 1980s. The land has gone back to its original owners after a dispute with the Archaeological Conservancy, which controlled the site for nearly two decades.
Scientists have called the site one of the oldest intact burial sites in North America. The land off RM 1431 was donated in 1991 by the owners, the Wilson Land and Cattle Co., which included former Texas Attorney General Will Wilson Sr., to the Archaeological Conservancy for preservation.
Will Wilson Jr., son of the late Wilson Sr., took the land back in 2005, alleging that the conservancy hadn't followed through on its promise to build an interpretive center for the public or place a plaque that was clearly visible naming the property in memory of Wilson Sr.'s wife, Marjorie Ashcroft Wilson, according to court records.
The conservancy sued and lost in court in 2007 and then lost an appeal before the 3rd Court of Appeals this year before deciding last month not to appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.
"We thought our chances of winning were not very good and the money was better spent trying to get another site," said Dee Ann Story , a member of the board of the Archaeological Conservancy and a former anthropology professor at the University of Texas. The conservancy, based in Albuquerque, N.M., owns about 400 sites around the U.S., Story said.
Wilson Jr., an Austin attorney, said he has no plans yet for the property.
"I am disappointed over the promises the conservancy made but never kept and never meant to keep," he said. He declined to comment further on the lawsuit.
Story said the site contains ancient cooking sites where stone tools were found. It's important because it is not as eroded as other sites found at the end of the ice age, about 10,000 years ago, she said.
When the Texas Department of Transportation was building RM 1431 in 1982, archaeologists discovered the remains — one of the oldest intact human burial sites discovered in the United States — on land that the Wilsons had donated for the highway's right of way, Wilson Jr. said.
The Wilsons deeded the land next to the right of way to the conservancy — subject to certain conditions that, if not met, meant the property would revert back to the Wilsons, court records said.
Those conditions included providing an archaeological laboratory for research excavations, exhibiting artifacts to the public, placing a plaque in honor of Wilson Sr.'s wife and naming the property after her, according to court records.
According to a lawsuit the conservancy filed in 2006 against Wilson Jr. and Wilson Land and Cattle Co., the conservancy had complied with all the conditions of the deed. It had placed a plaque on the property declaring that it was the "Marjorie Ashcroft Wilson Archaeological Preserve" and had used the property as a laboratory for intermittent excavations, the lawsuit said. The nonprofit had also, as stipulated in the deed, donated any artifacts removed from the property to the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory in Austin — where the Leanderthal Lady's remains are being kept — the lawsuit said.
A court ruled in 2007 that the conservancy failed to set aside any area for an interpretive center or visitor's center and did not have any plans to do so; the conservancy maintained no archaeological laboratory on the property; and no research excavations were done after 1993, according to court records.
The trial court also found that the conservancy attempted to sell a portion of the property for $100,000 in exchange for other land, court records said.
Mark Michel , the president of the Archaeological Conservancy, said the portion of the land the conservancy wanted to sell in 2006 was in exchange for another piece of land nearby that had more archaeological significance. The developer was going to pay the conservancy $100,000 because the conservancy's land was more valuable, Michel said. "The exchange had been preapproved by the Texas Historical Commission and by archaeologists involved in the project."
At the time the conservancy wanted to sell the land, the group did not know that Wilson Jr. had reclaimed the deed to it 20 months earlier, Michel said. He also said the conservancy did conduct several research projects on the land after 1993. "Everything in the district court ruling was untrue," Michel said.
There was nothing in the original deed between Wilson Sr. and the conservancy about an interpretive center being built, he said.
"We never build interpretive centers," Michel said. "We preserve the archaeological site for further research."
Author: Claire Osborn | Source: Statesman [September 19, 2010]