Construction on a housing development in Deep Creek in 1974 yielded the surprising discovery — four sets of African American remains. One is believed to be a preteen male, another a toddler and the others a woman in her 30s and a woman in her 40s.

Research tells us the bodies date to the late 1700s or 1800s based on gravestones found at the site. Since then, they have been in limbo, stored in various places, including their current home — the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab in St. Leonard.

Janice Curtis Greene wants a final resting place for them.

A ceremony Tuesday at Mt. Calvary Methodist Church will get the remains, which “deserve respect and grace,” closer to that, she said.

Her hope is that the “sacred ancestral bones” will be interred in the cemetery of a local church, but she says funding has been caught in political crosshairs.

“It’s important because they were disturbed from their eternal rest,” she said. “Growth, development, pools, parking lots, weather meant their spirits can’t rest.”

A member of the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture, Curtis Greene is part of an effort aimed at identifying and interring the remains of close to 100 people currently stored at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.

Curtis Greene’s commission has combined efforts with the lab and the Maryland Historical Trust to eventually bring closure to the remains.

A federal grant, which would have funded interment efforts at The Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum, has been rescinded by the Trump administration but has since been successfully appealed, according to Curtis Greene. The interment of these remains will fall to the next commission, said Curtis Greene, whose stint with the commission ends this month. This year, the federal government eliminated a National Endowment for the Arts grant that she had previously used for her live historical portrayals of figures like Harriet Tubman.

The Deep Creek remains, along with the others, will continue to be stored in the lab until a culturally affiliated community can be identified to inter them.

The process of interring these bodies isn’t as simple as placing the remains in a coffin.

An extensive examination of the remains — many of which are not complete skeletons — is required, as is the need to identify descendants through genealogical records, land record research, and possibly DNA comparison and matching, Curtis Greene said.

After that process has been exhausted, and no relatives have been identified, an effort begins to find a culturally affiliated community, a collective of churches or leaders in a particular area that will be in charge of interring the remains.

The human remains at the lab largely have been found by accident — through construction projects and coastal erosion, said Patricia Samford, director of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab. All 13 sets were recovered from 1960 to the 1990s as “unintentional finds.”

All initial examinations have been conducted by physical anthropologists from the Smithsonian, Samford added. Additional efforts to identify descendants will need to be conducted.

It is unknown if those found in Deep Creek were freed or enslaved because Maryland at that time had one of the largest populations of freed Black people in the country, Curtis Greene said. An additional nine non-African remains were found there. And it is unclear their relationship to the African American bodies.

Some of the graves were marked with native sandstone markers with initials and dates that were extremely weathered. Some were found with clothing, which also helped to determine the age of the bones.

“They only took out some of the graves — the ones in the way of the house,” Samford said, adding there were about 40 sandstone markers discovered, suggesting there could have been up to 100 burials there.

After the Deep Creek remains are interred, the lab will start the process again with the nine remains of people of African descent. Then the lab will move on to doing the same with the remains of 73 people of European descent. All of these remains have been found throughout the state in Anne Arundel, Wicomico, Calvert, Charles and Queen Anne’s counties.

Samford said she doesn’t know how long that process will last.

All of the facility’s human remains are held in protective, lightweight, waterproof coroplast boxes in a separate portion of the lab that has been deemed an appropriate place of repose.

“We don’t let anyone see them or handle them,” she said. “We try and accord them respect.”

This is not the first time the 45,000-square-foot lab has done this type of work.

In 2019, the lab worked with churches in Anne Arundel County to bury two sets of ancestral remains of African origin. One, Smith Price, was believed to be a founding member of Asbury United Methodist Church. Six months later, researchers were able to do facial reconstruction drawings of Price.

“It was very moving,” Samford recalled of that ceremony.

Curtis Greene praised the work of the lab in honoring the remains.

“They love their jobs and revere these remains as if they were relatives. It is amazing. Because they are scientists, they don’t care about silly things like bowing to political pressure,” she said. “They want to find answers. They are looking for the truth. This is their passion.”

Tuesday, Curtis Greene promises a powerful ceremony during which she will recite an original poem inspired by the remains of the four people found at Deep Creek and the others found throughout the state — still waiting to find their final resting place.

“This will let the spirits know that the bones have not been forgotten,” Curtis Greene said. “Hopefully this will bring the spirits eternal rest.”

She will also hand out the seeds of colorful wild flowers that day.

“Hopefully they will grow,” she said. “The ancestors will take care of them.”