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

A partial skull from practically 8,000 years in the past that was discovered by two kayakers in a river final summer will probably be returned to Native American officers in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull that was discovered final summer 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 found the skull within the drought-depleted Minnesota River about 110 miles (180 kilometers) west of Minneapolis, Renville County Sheriff Scott Hable stated.

Pondering it might be related to a missing person case or murder, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical examiner and ultimately to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to find out it was doubtless the skull of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

"It was a complete shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable told Minnesota Public Radio.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 a number of Native People, who mentioned publishing pictures of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable mentioned his office eliminated the post.

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

Hable said the stays can be turned over to Higher Sioux Group tribal officers.

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

Goetsch stated the Fb put up “confirmed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the individual a Native American and referring to the stays as “slightly piece of historical past.”

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

She stated the young man would have likely eaten a weight loss program of crops, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, fairly than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many individuals at the moment wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I mentioned, the glaciers have solely retreated a couple of thousands years earlier than that,” Blue stated. “That interval, we don’t know much about it.”