At the Catalina Island Museum, skeleton clues to a prehistoric past

Ancient necklaces and other artifacts of prehistoric Tongva tribal members who once lived on Catalina are displayed in the Ralph Glidden exhibit at the Catalina Island Museum.  (Christina House / For the Los Angeles Times)

Michael De Marsche, executive director of the Catalina Island Museum, stands near an urn found by Ralph Glidden.  (Christina House / For the Los Angeles Times)

Jeanne Hill, left, and her husband, Bill Hill, center, tell John Boraggina, curator of the Catalina Island Museum, and Wendy Teeter, curator of archaeology at UCLA’s Fowler Museum, about their visits to Ralph Glidden’s museum on Catalina before it closed in 1950. “It was scary, very scary,” Jeanne Hill recalled. “Bones piled up all over the place. One skull had a light on in it.”  (Christina House / For the Los Angeles Times)

Wendy Teeter, curator of archaeology at the Fowler Museum, left, and John Boraggina, curator of the Catalina Island Museum, marvel at the trove of newly discovered documents produced by the mysterious pseudo-scientist Ralph Glidden.  (Christina House / For the Los Angeles Times)