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

A partial skull from nearly 8,000 years in the past that was found by two kayakers in a river last summer time shall be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Associated Press

21 Could 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull that was found final summer by two kayakers in Minnesota will be returned to Native American officers after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years previous.

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

Thinking it may be associated to a missing person case or murder, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and ultimately to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to find out it was possible the skull of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable said.

"It was a whole shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable told Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the man had a depression in his skull that was “perhaps suggestive of the cause of dying.”

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

Hable stated his workplace eliminated the submit.

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

Hable mentioned the remains shall be turned over to Higher Sioux Group tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Resources Specialist Dylan Goetsch stated in an announcement that neither the council nor the state archaeologist have been notified about 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 a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the individual a Native American and referring to the remains as “somewhat piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, mentioned Wednesday that the skull was positively from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless residing within the space, The New York Times reported.

She said the young man would have doubtless eaten a weight-reduction plan of vegetation, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, relatively than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s in all probability not that many people at that time wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, as a result of, like I stated, the glaciers have solely retreated a few 1000's years before that,” Blue said. “That period, we don’t know a lot about it.”