Bones found Tuesday in the basement of a Tarentum commercial building undergoing renovations are not human, an Allegheny County spokeswoman said Wednesday.
The bone fragments found in the basement of the building at 305 E. Fifth Ave. were turned over to borough police and then to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner.
“The bones are not human,” Allegheny County spokeswoman Amie Downs said.
No other information about the bones was immediately available.
The bones were unearthed when workers with Mosites Construction began breaking up the concrete in the basement of the building, owned by nonprofit FCP Services. New concrete footers are being placed in the basement, much of which will be filled in to support a new laundromat on the building’s first floor.
“Even if they were human, it was a few bone fragments, not half a skeleton or a bone yard,” said Dave Rankin, executive director of FCP Services. “Quite frankly, if they were there circa 1900 to 1910, who knows what circumstances might have lead to them being there.”
There was suspicion the bones were human when first found. Rankin said the Mosites workers followed protocol in contacting him and then police.
Some small, intact glass bottles also were found, among pieces of broken bottles. Rankin said he gave the little glass bottles to Cindy Homburg, an unofficial Tarentum historian.
Nothing else has been found, Rankin said Wednesday.
