Nearly 8,000-year-old skull found in Minnesota River

A partial skull from practically 8,000 years ago that was found by two kayakers in a river final summer might be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Associated Press

21 Could 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial cranium that was found final summer season by two kayakers in Minnesota will probably be returned to Native American officials after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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

Thinking it could be related to a missing individual case or murder, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical expert and finally to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to determine it was seemingly the cranium of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

"It was an entire shock to us that that bone was that old,” Hable told Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist decided the person had a despair in his cranium that was “maybe suggestive of the cause of demise.”

After the sheriff posted in regards to the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by several Native Individuals, who stated publishing photos of ancestral stays was offensive to their tradition.

Hable said his workplace removed the post.

"We didn’t imply for it to be offensive in anyway,” Hable mentioned.

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

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

Goetsch stated the Facebook put up “confirmed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the individual a Native American and referring to the remains as “just a little piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, stated Wednesday that the cranium was undoubtedly from an ancestor of one of many tribes still residing in the space, The New York Times reported.

She stated the younger man would have seemingly eaten a weight loss plan of vegetation, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, somewhat than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many people at the moment wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years ago, as a result of, like I said, the glaciers have solely retreated a number of thousands years before that,” Blue said. “That interval, we don’t know much about it.”