Nearly 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 final summer time will probably be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull that was found final summer season by two kayakers in Minnesota will be returned to Native American officers after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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

Thinking it could be related to a missing person case or murder, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical expert and ultimately to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to find out it was probably the cranium of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable said.

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

The anthropologist decided the man had a melancholy in his cranium that was “perhaps suggestive of the reason for death.”

After the sheriff posted concerning the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by several Native People, who mentioned publishing images of ancestral stays was offensive to their tradition.

Hable stated his office removed the publish.

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

Hable mentioned the remains might be turned over to Higher Sioux Community tribal officials.

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

Goetsch said the Facebook submit “confirmed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the individual a Native American and referring to the stays as “slightly piece of history.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, stated Wednesday that the cranium was positively from an ancestor of one of the tribes nonetheless residing within the area, The New York Times reported.

She mentioned the young man would have doubtless eaten a food regimen of crops, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, relatively than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s most likely not that many individuals at that time wandering around 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 before that,” Blue mentioned. “That period, we don’t know a lot about it.”