A group of archaeology students from ANU who helped historians in their efforts to document the history of the Székely people in Romania will be travelling to the US next month to present their findings.
The Székely are an ethnic minority of Hungarian descent who traditionally served as frontier guards against the Ottoman Turks.
There are no written histories of the Székely people, but objects discovered by the ANU group in July last year could be a step towards changing that.
Biological anthropology masters student Coco James is one of the students travelling to New Orleans to present to the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.
"It's fantastic to be able to go over there, and to be presenting something is really exciting," she said.
The students unearthed 49 graves from the 17th to 19th centuries on the dig in a Transylvanian graveyard and discovered a range of coins that could provide some insight into the history of the Székely.
"We obtained the dates through the characteristics of coins associated with skeletons, mostly through their size and one of them had a partial date on it," she said.
The group used ground penetrating radar to begin the dig before moving on to shovels and then finer tools.
Ms James said she was glad that the students main involvement was with the more detailed parts of the excavation.
"I don't think they ever damaged a skeleton while they were digging because they were so good working it out," she said.
"If that had of been me I would've destroyed one."
One body in particular perplexed the group as one of the few in the "haphazard" cemetery from the 19th century.
"We found him with a lot more coins than others in the grave group, so there was the assumption he was quite wealthy or of high standing," she said.
"But for some reason, he was also very well preserved but we're not sure why."
Coins weren't the only things the group found with a number of strange objects being found said Ms James.
"One was a skull which was quite clearly the same age but buried in a modern plastic bag," she said.
"We think it was most likely a farmer from area who didn't want to have to go through the process of getting people to come and check things out."
Despite dealing with human remains Ms James said she didn't get too creeped out on the dig.
"I was excavating bodies from the 17th century so there wasn't much to be squeamish about, but I'm yet to encounter a decomposing corpse so I'm not sure how I'll react if that ever happens."