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

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

ByThe Associated Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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

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

Considering it could be related to a missing person case or murder, Hable turned the skull over to a health worker and eventually 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"It was a whole shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable advised Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the man had a depression in his skull that was “maybe suggestive of the reason for demise.”

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by a number of Native Individuals, who said publishing photos of ancestral stays was offensive to their tradition.

Hable stated his workplace eliminated the submit.

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

Hable mentioned the stays might be turned over to Upper Sioux Neighborhood tribal officials.

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

Goetsch stated the Fb put up “confirmed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “a bit of piece of history.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, mentioned Wednesday that the skull was positively from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless living within the area, The New York Occasions reported.

She mentioned the younger man would have doubtless eaten a eating 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 individuals at the moment wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, as a result of, like I said, the glaciers have only retreated just a few hundreds years before that,” Blue said. “That interval, we don’t know a lot about it.”