Almost 8,000-year-old skull present in Minnesota River

A partial cranium from almost 8,000 years ago that was found by two kayakers in a river last summer shall be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial cranium that was found last summer time by two kayakers in Minnesota might be returned to Native American officials after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years old.

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

Thinking it could be associated to a lacking person case or murder, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and eventually to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to determine it was likely the cranium of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

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

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

After the sheriff posted in regards to the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by a number of Native Americans, who mentioned publishing images of ancestral remains was offensive to their tradition.

Hable mentioned his office removed the publish.

"We didn’t mean for it to be offensive whatsoever,” Hable mentioned.

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

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Resources Specialist Dylan Goetsch said in an announcement that neither the council nor the state archaeologist have been notified concerning the discovery, which is required by state laws that govern the care and repatriation of Native American remains.

Goetsch mentioned the Fb post “showed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the person a Native American and referring to the remains as “a little bit piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, mentioned Wednesday that the skull was positively from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless residing in the area, The New York Occasions reported.

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

“There’s probably not that many people at the moment wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years ago, as a result of, like I said, the glaciers have only retreated a few thousands years earlier than that,” Blue said. “That interval, we don’t know a lot about it.”