Marianas High School has stumbled upon the remnants of what is believed to be a portion of a skeleton and some ancient artifacts alongside it during construction of the school\u2019s new cafeteria.<\/p>\n
The most populous high school in the CNMI discovered human remains of what unofficial reports refer to as \u201ca portion of an arm\u201d with ancient artifacts nearby. The digging occurred right next to the MHS Gymnasium in order to lay out the foundation for the new MHS cafeteria. Excavation was only about 3-5 feet.<\/p>\n
Public School System associate commissioner for administrative services Glenn Mu\u00f1a told the media last Wednesday that construction has been ceased in order to find out more about the remains.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Historic Preservations Office issued a stop order to get archaeologists to come in and do some research to determine the next step,\u201d said Mu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
Although Mu\u00f1a did not clarify whether the cafeteria would be moved as a result of the unexpected discovery, he informed the media that archaeological research must first be done to proceed with the construction, a postponement that would take at least 30 days. According to Mu\u00f1a, a request for quotation, or RFQ, is now being finalized for the hiring of an archaeologist to study the remnants.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we get the archaeologists on board and we get the green light from HPO to proceed with the project then we would continue,\u201d said Mu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a handful [of architects]; maybe two or three archaeologists on island or maybe in Guam, so we are seeking quotations from them so we can determine who the lowest bidder is,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The postponement of construction work on the cafeteria would depend solely on \u201chow soon an archaeologist comes in and how soon the HPO would give us a green light [to continue],\u201d said Mu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
According to PSS federal programs officer Tim Thornburgh, the area must be surveyed to determine whether there are additional remnants nearby.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit expensive for us\u2026 We\u2019ll see what happens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On the subject of relocating the cafeteria, Thornburgh is hopeful that is not going to happen as he said the current site was the \u201cperfect location for a cafeteria.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere [aren\u2019t that many] open locations in MHS that make sense. We just have to wait and see,\u201d said Thornburgh as he clarified the decision to relocate the cafeteria was out of PSS\u2019 hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marianas High School has stumbled upon the remnants of what is believed to be a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[16604,1093,365,40],"class_list":["post-251302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-glenn-mu","tag-hpo","tag-mhs","tag-pss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}