History’s “The Curse of Oak Island” has had its fair share of groundbreaking discoveries over the years, though more often than not they seem to lead nowhere at all. Gold coins, ancient maps, even booby traps -– the Lagina brothers have had plenty of success digging up all sorts of things across the infamous island, just not any success finding what they’re actually looking for.
Since the 1700s, Oak Island has been rumored to hold everything from the treasure of the Knights Templar to the original written works of William Shakespeare (via History). The Lagina brothers and the rest of their team have followed every lead they can to try and track down where that treasure might be, and even after nine seasons, they’re still coming up empty-handed.
Part of their lack of success could come from searching in the wrong places, or for the wrong things. However, one of the most impactful discoveries the team has ever made does not qualify as treasure by any stretch of the imagination.
The human bone might have originated in the Middle East
In Season 5, while digging around where the alleged “Money Pit” is supposedly located, the team uncovered a human bone fragment, buried deep within the earth (via YouTube). The Lagina brothers sent the fragment away to St. Mary’s University in Halifax, where researchers performed DNA sequencing on the bone.
There, they discovered that the bones had come from someone of Middle Eastern ancestry, which tied in to certain theories about the island’s treasure being connected to the Knights Templar. The theory goes that after fighting the Crusades (which took place across a large chunk of the Middle East), the Knights Templar fled across the sea and buried their treasure on Oak Island to hide it from their enemies.
Like most of the leads in the series, the bone fragment doesn’t lend any further indication of where the treasure might be. However, the fact that it came from the Middle East is certainly a hopeful sign that there is something hidden on the island itself.