In a lot of Catholic Latin homes in South America, it's customary to have a skull to ward off evil spirits.
this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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Officials do not believe the case is suspicious in nature
Maybe it's not evidence of a murder or whatever but it is suspicious. Where can you get a human skull as a random individual which isn't suspicious? Like even taking it home from a donated body or an archeological site is suspicious.
In the US there's at least one shop, to the best of my knowledge, that actually sells human parts like skull, femurs etc (JonsBones). So, there might be a legal source 😊
It could be from a modern collector because as you mentioned, there are only a few states where it's illegal to buy skeletal parts. My guess is that someone inherited it from an old family collection and didn't want to deal with it.
A few generations ago it wasn't completely unusual for a doctor to have a human skull in his office or study. Eventually Gramps dies, his kids or grandkids inherit his stuff, and now they have a skull that they might remember fondly but don't exactly want to display in their front parlor. So they hide it away in a closet. Maybe in its carrying case, but who knows where Old Doc picked it up.
The primary concern in the article seems to be that it was from a looted native grave. That is possible, even probable, given the suspected age. Article about a prolific grave robber from Indiana.
The modern trade in legal skulls comes mostly from Asia (China and India, last time I checked). They're also quite expensive ($2-3k), so it's not likely a modern collector lost track of it among the contents of a storage shed.
Why on earth would people down vote this?
Do they? I don't see seperate votes 🤔 But who cares anyway
When I made my comment this morning (say 12 hours ago), the one I replied to was negative 2, iirc.
Maybe someone willed their skull to a Halloween store.
Imagine being at your grandmother's lawyer's office and hear that she's donated her skull and bones to Halloween-R-Us.
That's the spirit.
There's a legal market for it as far as I recall correctly
Yep there sure is. The origin of the bones is often somewhat nefarious but not necessarily illegal (it depends, it is complicated and due to the international nature of the trade is hard to track). Once they are just bones and in the market in the USA completely legal to trade and own human body parts.
There is a trade of human bones for both medical reasons and to collectors. They almost always come from international sources and are generally legal. Once the hit the US market that is. Before that it can be very hard to tell for sure.
Taking them from donated bodies is mixed depending on the context of donation and taking them from archeology sites is 100% illegal.
The place this happened isn't actually a thrift store, it's an antique mall. Though, to be fair, a lot of the products did come from thrift stores. Here's a more detailed article.
Once I saw it was Lee county I knew the exact place it happened and whose booth had the skull. My mother is actually one of the vendors there.
Edit: Fixed a formatting error.
Puts on sunglasses
... Sometimes buying from thrift stores is the only way to get a head.
YYYEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH