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

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

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull that was discovered final 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Minnesota will likely be returned to Native American officers after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years outdated.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 skull within the drought-depleted Minnesota River about 110 miles (180 kilometers) west of Minneapolis, Renville County Sheriff Scott Hable stated.

Considering it might be related to a lacking individual case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and eventually to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to determine it was likely the skull of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable mentioned.

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

The anthropologist decided the man had a despair in his cranium that was “perhaps suggestive of the cause of loss of life.”

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by several Native Individuals, who mentioned publishing images of ancestral stays was offensive to their tradition.

Hable mentioned his office eliminated the put up.

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

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

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Resources Specialist Dylan Goetsch stated in a press release 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 put up “confirmed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the individual a Native American and referring to the stays as “a little bit piece of history.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, said Wednesday that the cranium was undoubtedly from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless dwelling in the area, The New York Instances reported.

She said the young man would have possible eaten a weight loss plan of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, relatively than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s in all probability not that many individuals at the moment wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I said, the glaciers have only retreated just a few 1000's years before that,” Blue stated. “That interval, we don’t know a lot about it.”