Practically 8,000-year-old cranium found in Minnesota River

A partial skull from practically 8,000 years in the past that was found by two kayakers in a river final summer season will probably be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull that was discovered last summer by two kayakers in Minnesota can be returned to Native American officers after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years old.

The kayakers found the skull in the drought-depleted Minnesota River about 110 miles (180 kilometers) west of Minneapolis, Renville County Sheriff Scott Hable said.

Thinking it may be related to a missing individual case or homicide, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical examiner and ultimately to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to determine it was possible the skull of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

"It was a complete shock to us that that bone was that old,” Hable informed Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the person had a melancholy in his skull that was “maybe suggestive of the cause of demise.”

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by several Native Individuals, who said publishing photos of ancestral remains was offensive to their tradition.

Hable said his office removed the post.

"We didn’t mean for it to be offensive in any way,” Hable said.

Hable stated the remains will probably be turned over to Upper Sioux Community tribal officers.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Resources Specialist Dylan Goetsch mentioned in a statement that neither the council nor the state archaeologist had been notified about the discovery, which is required by state laws that govern the care and repatriation of Native American stays.

Goetsch mentioned the Fb put up “showed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “a little bit piece of history.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, stated Wednesday that the skull was definitely from an ancestor of one of the tribes still dwelling within the area, The New York Occasions reported.

She stated the young man would have possible eaten a weight loss program of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, fairly than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many individuals at that time wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years ago, because, like I stated, the glaciers have solely retreated a few hundreds years before that,” Blue mentioned. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”