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

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

ByThe Associated Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

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in Minnesota might be returned to Native American officials after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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

Considering it could be related to a lacking individual case or murder, Hable turned the skull over to a health worker and ultimately to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to find out it was possible the cranium of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable said.

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

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

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by a number of Native Americans, who mentioned publishing images of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable mentioned his office removed the post.

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

Hable mentioned the remains will likely be turned over to Upper Sioux Neighborhood tribal officers.

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

Goetsch stated the Fb publish “showed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name 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 University, mentioned Wednesday that the skull was definitely from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless residing within the area, The New York Times reported.

She said the younger man would have likely eaten a weight-reduction plan of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, rather than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

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