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

A partial cranium from nearly 8,000 years in the past that was found by two kayakers in a river last summer will probably be returned to Native American officers in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 Might 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

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

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

Considering it is perhaps associated to a missing individual case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and finally to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to find out it was doubtless 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"It was a whole shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable informed Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist decided the person had a depression in his cranium that was “maybe suggestive of the cause of demise.”

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

Hable stated his workplace removed the publish.

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

Hable mentioned the remains will be turned over to Upper Sioux Community tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Sources 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 laws that govern the care and repatriation of Native American remains.

Goetsch mentioned the Facebook post “showed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the person a Native American and referring to the remains as “a bit piece of historical past.”

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

She said the younger man would have probably eaten a food plan of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, reasonably 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 in the past, as a result of, like I stated, the glaciers have solely retreated a number of 1000's years earlier than that,” Blue stated. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”