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

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

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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

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.

Considering it could be associated to a lacking particular person case or homicide, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical examiner and ultimately to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to determine it was probably the skull of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

"It was a complete shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable told Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the person had a depression in his skull that was “perhaps suggestive of the reason for loss of life.”

After the sheriff posted in regards to the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by a number of Native Americans, who said publishing photos of ancestral remains was offensive to their tradition.

Hable mentioned his office eliminated the post.

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

Hable mentioned the stays can be turned over to Upper Sioux Group tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Sources Specialist Dylan Goetsch mentioned 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 Fb submit “showed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the individual 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 College, stated Wednesday that the skull was positively from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless dwelling within the area, The New York Instances reported.

She mentioned the young man would have doubtless eaten a food plan of crops, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, quite than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many individuals at that time wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, as a result of, like I mentioned, the glaciers have solely retreated a number of hundreds years before that,” Blue mentioned. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”