An excavation project for a pond expansion turned up a surprise Friday: a human skull and other bones.

“It was about the last two scoops of dirt that we were going to excavate at that level,” property owner Chris Zarcone said. “What’s the chances of digging a pond in your yard and hitting something like that, you know?”

Zarcone immediately contacted the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office. Several deputies as well as Sheriff Chuck Curry responded to the property just south of Kalispell and collected as many other bones as they could find.

The remains are being analyzed.

“It is the opinion of the state medical examiner’s office that this is a Native American, so we’re contacting them [the tribes] at this point to see what they want done with the remains,” Curry said.

Staff with the Sheriff’s Office and potentially tribal members will go to the site Monday to do a more thorough dig to see if anything or anyone else is buried there.

According to Curry, the Sheriff’s Office contacts a representative from the state historical society whenever remains of this sort are discovered. That person will then contact the nearest tribe and see what it wants to do, which ranges from reburying the remains at the same location to taking direct possession of the remains.

Regardless of what decision is made, Zarcone is prepared to help any way he can.

“We want to honor and respect what happened, allow the Native American people to have access and do anything they want,” Zarcone said. “Whatever we can do to honor the memory of who it was.”