A stalemate over the handling of the remains of several American Indian skeletons - unearthed in October when a Shelter Island resident dug the foundation for a barn - is forcing the town board to decide what to do with the discoveries.

Earlier this week, an intertribal delegation met with the Shelter Island Town Board, hoping to get the remains protected.

"If a significant burial ground is found, what do you do? The practice of putting bones in a museum is not approved of anymore," said Harry Wallace, chief of the Unkechaug Nation, of the Poospatuck Reservation in Mastic.

Walter and Susanne Richards found the remains of seven to 11 skeletons as they dug a foundation for a horse barn on Osprey Road.

The bones were buried 3 feet. A forensic anthropologist said they probably were Native Americans buried between 1410 and 1640.

Initially, the Shinnecock Indian Nation asked the Shelter Island Town Board to pass a law to protect the grave site and any future graves that might be found.

Town officials acted as an intermediary between the Richards family and the Intertribal Historic Preservation Task Force, or council, but Supervisor Arthur Williams said their legal authority was unclear. "This appears to be a legal no-man's-land," he said.

Until recently, the intertribal council was negotiating with the family to move either the barn or the remains.

The family could not be reached to comment yesterday.

Last week, Wallace formally notified the Shelter Island Town Board that "the Richards recently abandoned any efforts in moving the barn, and have now decided they will offer to let the remains be removed at Inter-Tribal Historic Preservation Task Force's discretion and expense."

There is, he told the town board on Tuesday, no place where the remains could be relocated. And, he added, it would be inappropriate to move a mass grave.

Shelter Island officials said they, too, were surprised by the family's decision, adding that it would be appropriate to seek a site where both Native American and Colonial-era remains might be reburied with appropriate ceremony.

"The town board wants to act in earnest on this," Williams said. "It's just taking some time. We're breaking new ground."

George Stankevich, the Shinnecock's tribal attorney, said the tribe would be reviewing its legal options.

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