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

A partial cranium from almost 8,000 years in the past that was discovered by two kayakers in a river final summer time 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 final summer by two kayakers in Minnesota might be returned to Native American officers after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years previous.

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

Thinking it is likely to be related to a missing particular person case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and ultimately to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to find out it was probably the cranium of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

"It was an entire shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable told Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the man had a despair in his cranium that was “maybe suggestive of the reason for dying.”

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by a number of Native People, who said publishing pictures of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable said his office eliminated the put up.

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

Hable stated the remains shall be turned over to Upper Sioux Group tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Assets 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 stated the Facebook post “showed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the individual a Native American and referring to the stays as “a bit piece of history.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, mentioned Wednesday that the cranium was positively from an ancestor of one of the tribes still residing in the space, The New York Occasions reported.

She stated the young man would have doubtless eaten a diet of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, quite than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s most likely not that many people at the moment wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I stated, the glaciers have only retreated a few 1000's years before that,” Blue stated. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”