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

A partial cranium from practically 8,000 years ago that was found by two kayakers in a river last summer time will likely be returned to Native American officers in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial cranium that was found last summer by two kayakers in Minnesota will be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years old.

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.

Considering it may be related to a lacking individual case or murder, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and finally to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to find out it was likely the skull 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 informed Minnesota Public Radio.

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

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by several Native Individuals, who stated publishing pictures of ancestral stays was offensive to their culture.

Hable stated his workplace removed the publish.

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

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

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Assets Specialist Dylan Goetsch said in an announcement that neither the council nor the state archaeologist had been notified concerning the discovery, which is required by state legal guidelines that govern the care and repatriation of Native American remains.

Goetsch said the Facebook publish “showed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the person a Native American and referring to the remains 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 residing within the area, The New York Times reported.

She stated the young man would have likely eaten a diet of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, reasonably than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many individuals at that time wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years ago, because, like I stated, the glaciers have only retreated a couple of 1000's years before that,” Blue stated. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”