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

A partial skull from almost 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 Could 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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

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

Considering it might be related to a missing particular person case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical examiner and ultimately to the FBI, where 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"It was a complete shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable advised Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist decided the man had a despair in his skull that was “perhaps 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 images of ancestral remains was offensive to their tradition.

Hable stated his office removed the submit.

"We didn’t mean for it to be offensive by any means,” Hable stated.

Hable mentioned the remains will likely be turned over to Higher Sioux Group 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 stays.

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 little bit piece of historical past.”

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

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

“There’s most likely not that many people at the moment wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I mentioned, the glaciers have solely retreated a few hundreds years earlier than that,” Blue mentioned. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”