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

A partial cranium from nearly 8,000 years ago that was found by two kayakers in a river final summer season might be returned to Native American officers in Minnesota

ByThe Associated Press

21 Could 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial cranium that was found last summer season by two kayakers in Minnesota might be returned to Native American officers after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years previous.

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

Considering it is perhaps associated to a missing individual case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical examiner and eventually to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to determine it was possible 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 decided the man had a despair in his skull that was “maybe suggestive of the reason for loss of life.”

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

Hable mentioned his office eliminated the submit.

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

Hable mentioned the stays will likely be turned over to Higher Sioux Neighborhood tribal officers.

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

Goetsch mentioned the Fb publish “confirmed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the individual a Native American and referring to the remains as “just a little piece of historical past.”

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

She mentioned the young man would have seemingly eaten a eating regimen 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 that time wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years ago, because, like I said, the glaciers have only retreated a few 1000's years earlier than that,” Blue mentioned. “That interval, we don’t know much about it.”