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

A partial cranium from practically 8,000 years ago that was discovered by two kayakers in a river last summer time will 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 final summer time by two kayakers in Minnesota shall be returned to Native American officials after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years previous.

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

Thinking it is likely to be related to a lacking particular person case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical examiner and finally 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"It was a whole shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable told Minnesota Public Radio.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 decided the person had a depression in his cranium that was “maybe suggestive of the reason for demise.”

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

Hable said his workplace eliminated the submit.

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

Hable stated the remains will likely be turned over to Higher Sioux Group tribal officers.

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

Goetsch mentioned the Facebook publish “showed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the person a Native American and referring to the remains as “slightly piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, mentioned Wednesday that the cranium was undoubtedly from an ancestor of one of many tribes still living in the space, The New York Instances reported.

She stated the young man would have possible eaten a food regimen of vegetation, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, quite than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s in all probability not that many individuals at that time wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, as a result of, like I said, the glaciers have only retreated just a few hundreds years earlier than that,” Blue stated. “That period, we don’t know a lot about it.”