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

A partial cranium from nearly 8,000 years ago that was discovered by two kayakers in a river last summer might be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Associated Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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Minnesota will likely be returned to Native American officers after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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

Pondering it is likely to be associated to a lacking individual case or homicide, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical expert and finally to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to determine it was seemingly the cranium of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

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

The anthropologist decided the person had a despair in his cranium that was “perhaps suggestive of the reason for demise.”

After the sheriff posted concerning the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by a number of Native People, who said publishing images of ancestral stays was offensive to their culture.

Hable mentioned his workplace removed the put up.

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

Hable stated the remains will be turned over to Higher Sioux Neighborhood 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 stated the Facebook publish “confirmed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “a bit piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, mentioned Wednesday that the skull was undoubtedly from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless residing in the area, The New York Occasions reported.

She stated the young man would have possible eaten a diet of crops, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, quite 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 ago, because, like I mentioned, the glaciers have only retreated just a few thousands years earlier than that,” Blue mentioned. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”