In 1982 a ice-age skeleton, nicknamed the ‘Leanderthal Lady,’ was found along the newly constructed RM 1431 near Leander; scientists called it one of the oldest intact burial sites in North America. Now, after a long legal battle, a 2.5 acre patch of land nearby (not the burial site itself) has gone back to its original owners after a dispute with the Archaeological Conservancy, which controlled it for nearly two decades. The land was donated in 1991 by the Wilson Land and Cattle Co., which included former Texas Attorney General Will Wilson Sr., with strings attached, and Will Wilson Jr., Wilson Sr’s son, took the land back in 2005, alleging that the conservancy had not built an interpretive center or placed a plaque naming the property in memory of Marjorie Ashcroft Wilson as it had promised.
Leanderthal Lady lot lost
