Nearly 8,000-year-old cranium 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 will be returned to Native American officers in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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

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

Pondering it might be associated to a missing person case or murder, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical examiner and eventually to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to find out it was probably the skull 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 determined the person had a melancholy in his skull that was “maybe suggestive of the cause of dying.”

After the sheriff posted in regards to the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by several Native People, who stated publishing pictures of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable stated his workplace eliminated the put up.

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

Hable stated the remains can be turned over to Upper Sioux Neighborhood tribal officers.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Sources Specialist Dylan Goetsch said in a statement 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 stays.

Goetsch mentioned the Fb put up “confirmed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the person a Native American and referring to the remains as “a bit of piece of history.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, stated Wednesday that the cranium was undoubtedly from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless residing within the area, The New York Occasions reported.

She said the younger man would have seemingly eaten a food plan of crops, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, somewhat than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s most likely not that many people at the moment wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years ago, as a result of, like I mentioned, the glaciers have only retreated a few thousands years before that,” Blue said. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”