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

A partial cranium from almost 8,000 years ago that was discovered by two kayakers in a river final summer season can be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull that was discovered final summer season by two kayakers in Minnesota might be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years old.

The kayakers found the cranium within 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 associated to a missing particular person case or murder, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical examiner and eventually to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to find out it was possible the cranium of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable mentioned.

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

The anthropologist determined the person had a despair in his cranium that was “perhaps suggestive of the reason for death.”

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by a number of Native Individuals, who mentioned publishing photos of ancestral stays was offensive to their culture.

Hable said his office removed the put up.

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

Hable mentioned the stays will probably be turned over to Upper Sioux Neighborhood tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Assets Specialist Dylan Goetsch mentioned in a press release that neither the council nor the state archaeologist have been notified in regards to the discovery, which is required by state legal guidelines that govern the care and repatriation of Native American remains.

Goetsch said the Fb 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 history.”

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

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

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