The wooden bust of Native American Squanto at the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth. (Cape Cod Times/Christine Hochkeppel)

But one scientist is wondering, because of other clues that came with the findings, if the remains are that of Squanto, the Cape Cod Times reports.

“I wonder if it’s Squanto?” Donald Aikman, vice chairman of the town’s historical commission, said last week after learning about the grave unearthed on Feb. 14 on Salt Marsh Way in North Chatham.

Evidence of a Christian burial prompted several local historians to think about the famous Native American, also known as Tisquantum, whose final resting place remains a mystery.

Before he suddenly fell ill and died in Chatham in November 1622, Squanto was the influential English-speaking guide and interpreter who helped the Pilgrims survive in a country already heavily settled by Native Americans.

. . .

W. Sears Nickerson, the late Pleasant Bay historian, wrote that Squanto’s grave was probably in what is now the Eastward Ho! Golf Course above the bank that looks over the bay.

It’s just impossible to tell 410 years later, but the great thing about discoveries such as an old grave site, is that “it causes people to reflect on the real deep history that this place has,” Dunford said.

“We’re so caught up in contemporary events that we don’t necessarily think about the 10,000 years of history that is here,” he said.

Jenna Cederberg

Tags: donald aikman, native burials, Native history, north chatham, pilgrims, salt marsh way, squanto, Tisquantum