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

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

ByThe Related Press

21 Could 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

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

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

Thinking it could be related to a missing 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 doubtless the cranium of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable said.

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

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

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

Hable mentioned his office eliminated the post.

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

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

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

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

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

She said the younger man would have seemingly eaten a weight-reduction plan of vegetation, 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 that time wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years ago, as a result of, like I stated, the glaciers have only retreated a number of hundreds years earlier than that,” Blue said. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”