Nearly 8,000-year-old cranium found in Minnesota River

A partial skull from nearly 8,000 years ago that was discovered by two kayakers in a river final summer season will likely be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 Could 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

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

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

Pondering it might be associated to a lacking person case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a health worker and finally to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to find out it was likely the skull of a younger 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 advised Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the person had a depression in his cranium that was “perhaps suggestive of the cause of dying.”

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by several Native Americans, who mentioned publishing photos of ancestral stays was offensive to their tradition.

Hable stated his workplace eliminated the post.

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

Hable stated the remains will probably 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 laws that govern the care and repatriation of Native American remains.

Goetsch stated the Fb publish “confirmed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the individual a Native American and referring to the stays as “somewhat piece of history.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, mentioned Wednesday that the skull was definitely from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless living in the space, The New York Instances reported.

She mentioned the young man would have likely eaten a diet of vegetation, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, quite than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many people at the moment wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I mentioned, the glaciers have only retreated a couple of thousands years before that,” Blue said. “That interval, we don’t know a lot about it.”