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

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

ByThe Associated Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial cranium that was found final summer time by two kayakers in Minnesota might be returned to Native American officials 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 mentioned.

Thinking it might be related to a missing particular person case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and ultimately to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to determine it was doubtless the skull of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

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

The anthropologist determined the man had a despair in his cranium that was “maybe suggestive of the cause of dying.”

After the sheriff posted in regards to the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by several Native People, who mentioned publishing photos of ancestral remains was offensive to their tradition.

Hable said his office removed the submit.

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

Hable said the remains might be turned over to Upper Sioux Group tribal officials.

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

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

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, stated Wednesday that the skull was positively from an ancestor of one of many tribes still dwelling within the area, The New York Occasions reported.

She mentioned the younger man would have possible eaten a diet of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, moderately than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s most likely not that many individuals at the moment wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, as a result of, like I mentioned, the glaciers have solely retreated a number of thousands years before that,” Blue stated. “That interval, we don’t know much about it.”