A Canadian couple who recently stumbled upon a skeleton is now saddled with a $5,000 bill

[recyclebinned]

[trader4]

And all this time we've been told what a perfect land Canada is and that a story such as this only occurs in the USA. How could such a thing be possible? Among obvious problems, it's against the public interest because it discourages anyone who finds a skeleton from calling the police.

[The Daring Dufas]

The bill would be 5,000 Pounds in England. ^_^

TDD

[Robert]

I wouldn't have call the police. I think it would be damn cool to have a skull to sit on the mantle piece..... and the police would take it away for sure !!!!

[Bill]

They should have just stuck it in their closet.

[nestork]

I think that's a stupid law.

There are places in this world, like Rome, Alexandria, Athens, Jerusalem and others where you can't dig without finding historical artifacts or human remains. Just because someone finds human bones, it doesn't mean they're of any significance.

[harry]

Happens all the time in Europe including the UK. Here's one costing millions. Literally.

God help you if you live near a church/other ancient building if you live in the UK. You have to pay for a dig to make sure there's nothing there if you want to extend your house. Can cost £10,000 no problem at all.

[The Daring Dufas]

I would guess that Roman era graves are found in the South all the time. ^_^

TDD

[The Daring Dufas]

Well what if it was your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather? How would feel if someone dug up and desecrated his grave? o_O

TDD

[Frank]

A friend's wife discovered a dead body floating of the pier where she was heading to go sailing. Called police and it ruined her day with all the hubbub.

[nestork]

I'd guess it's worse than that. When armies fought on the battle fields back then, they'd basically run at each other with spears and swords and hack each other to death. I really don't know if they would have gone to all the trouble of burying every casualty of the battle. I expect, in most cases, they just would have dumped the bodies in shallow graves, thrown them in the bush to rot, burned them after they'd dried out, or even let the wolves and wild dogs eat them. I expect there's lots of farmland throughout Europe that was the site of one battle or another over the last 3000 years where there are hundreds or even thousands of skeletons just a foot or two below the depth to which the ploughs cut.

Even recently, a farmer in England found a Roman treasure buried on his farmland. It was apparantly owned by a Roman governor who was killed before he could retrieve it or tell anyone where it was buried.

[willshak]

Should the person finding the bones ignore them, or should he/she notify authorities who then would determine their importance? The authorities should then be responsible for all costs resulting from their investigation. Charging the property owner could deter people from reporting other such findings. The US government has probably spent millions of $$ looking for the body of Jimmy Hoffa, and it is still going on today in Michigan.

[Red]

He's probably buried in Ontario and that's why they don't want people reporting found bones.