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

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

ByThe Associated Press

21 Might 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull 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 found the cranium in the drought-depleted Minnesota River about 110 miles (180 kilometers) west of Minneapolis, Renville County Sheriff Scott Hable said.

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

"It was a complete shock to us that that bone was that old,” Hable advised Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist decided the person had a despair 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 Individuals, who stated publishing images of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable said his workplace eliminated the put up.

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

Hable stated the stays will likely be turned over to Higher Sioux Group tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Resources Specialist Dylan Goetsch stated in a statement that neither the council nor the state archaeologist were notified concerning the discovery, which is required by state laws that govern the care and repatriation of Native American stays.

Goetsch said the Facebook put up “confirmed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the person a Native American and referring to the remains as “somewhat piece of historical past.”

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

She stated the young man would have possible eaten a weight-reduction plan of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, quite than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s in all probability not that many individuals at that time wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I said, the glaciers have only retreated a few thousands years before that,” Blue said. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”