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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Forensic tests have found no link between a skull found in a Utah pawn shop and the brutal 1857 massacre of a wagon train party that crossed through the state.
Idaho state archaeologist Ken Reid says the remains are that of an adult Asian male, possibly of Vietnamese ancestry.
A purported bullet hole on the back of the skull was also found to be post-mortem damage, not an injury that may have caused death.
Sugar City, Idaho, resident Jeff Webb found the skull on the shelves of a Salt Lake City pawn shop in 1982. A note in the box said the artifact was from a victim of the Mountain Meadows massacre, an 1857 attack by a Mormon militia on an Arkansas wagon train that left 120 dead.
Webb turned the skull over for testing earlier this year.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
