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

A partial skull from nearly 8,000 years in the past that was discovered by two kayakers in a river final summer time might be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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in Minnesota can be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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.

Considering it may be associated to a missing person case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical examiner and ultimately to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to determine it was likely the cranium 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 previous,” Hable advised Minnesota Public Radio.

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

After the sheriff posted concerning the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by a number of Native Americans, who stated publishing photos of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable mentioned his office eliminated the publish.

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

Hable said the remains shall be turned over to Upper Sioux Community tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Resources Specialist Dylan Goetsch said in a press release that neither the council nor the state archaeologist have been notified in regards to the discovery, which is required by state laws that govern the care and repatriation of Native American stays.

Goetsch said the Fb post “confirmed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “a bit of piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, mentioned Wednesday that the skull was positively from an ancestor of one of the tribes nonetheless living within the area, The New York Times reported.

She stated the younger man would have likely eaten a weight loss plan of vegetation, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, fairly than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many individuals at that time wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I mentioned, the glaciers have only retreated a number of thousands years before that,” Blue stated. “That interval, we don’t know a lot about it.”