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

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

ByThe Associated Press

21 Might 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull that was found final summer time by two kayakers in Minnesota will be returned to Native American officers after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years outdated.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 stated.

Pondering it could be related to a missing individual case or homicide, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical expert and ultimately to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to determine it was doubtless the skull of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable mentioned.

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

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

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

Hable stated his office removed the publish.

"We didn’t imply for it to be offensive in any respect,” Hable said.

Hable stated the remains might be turned over to Upper Sioux Community tribal officers.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Resources Specialist Dylan Goetsch stated in an announcement that neither the council nor the state archaeologist were notified in regards to the discovery, which is required by state laws that govern the care and repatriation of Native American stays.

Goetsch mentioned the Facebook submit “showed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “just a little piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, said Wednesday that the skull was definitely from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless dwelling in the space, The New York Times reported.

She mentioned the young man would have probably eaten a food regimen of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, somewhat than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many people at that time wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I said, the glaciers have only retreated just a few thousands years earlier than that,” Blue mentioned. “That interval, we don’t know a lot about it.”