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

A partial skull from nearly 8,000 years ago that was discovered by two kayakers in a river last summer time shall be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 Might 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

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

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

Pondering it is perhaps associated to a lacking particular person case or homicide, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical expert and ultimately to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to determine it was possible the cranium of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable mentioned.

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

The anthropologist decided the man had a melancholy in his skull that was “maybe suggestive of the reason for demise.”

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

Hable stated his workplace eliminated the put up.

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

Hable said the stays will probably be turned over to Higher Sioux Neighborhood tribal officials.

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

Goetsch stated the Fb post “confirmed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “a bit piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, mentioned Wednesday that the cranium was definitely from an ancestor of one of the tribes nonetheless dwelling in the area, The New York Times reported.

She stated the younger man would have likely eaten a diet of crops, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, rather 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 ago, because, like I mentioned, the glaciers have solely retreated a couple of thousands years before that,” Blue said. “That interval, we don’t know a lot about it.”