CHARLESTOWN — Six months ago developers looked at a parcel behind Town Hall and thought it would be a great spot for affordable homes and apartments.

They came up with a proposal for 40 units –– and then discovered a historic cemetery on the site.

Soon after, an archeologist found signs that the early Narragansett Indians used the land.

The two developers are looking elsewhere.

“You need to be sensitive to the cultural history of this country,” said Jeffrey Gofton, interim director of the Washington County Community Development Corporation. The CDC and South County Habitat for Humanity had presented their plan to the Planning Commission in August.

The discovery of historic artifacts caused the groups to rethink their plan, Gofton said. There were also ownership issues, which could have led to a lengthy court battle, and the developers needed tentative approval by Dec. 30 to get money from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, he said.

The parcel abuts land owned by the town and the Narragansett Indian tribe.

“We know that the parcel is part of the original Narragansett land” marked by maps from the 1700s, said Alan Leveillee, the senior archaeologist at the Public Archaeology Laboratory who discovered the cemetery and other artifacts during a Sept. 11 survey.

The area includes Indian gravestones and piles of rocks that may have been left as tribal markers, Leveillee said.

Much of Washington County was once occupied by the tribe, he said. Tribal members “say they are a part of the land, and the land is a part of them, and there is some truth to that.”

Gofton, a former history major, agrees.

“We’ll continue to work with Charlestown to find places to build affordable homes,” he said. “But you can’t destroy a historic site. If you do, you deprive our kids of the chance to see the past. When you walk the land in these places, you get a sense of what it was like.”

pdavis@projo.com