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

A partial skull from almost 8,000 years in the past that was found by two kayakers in a river final summer shall be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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kayakers in Minnesota can be returned to Native American officers after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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

Considering it is likely to be related to a missing person case or murder, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical examiner and eventually to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to determine it was seemingly the cranium of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

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

The anthropologist decided the person had a depression in his skull that was “perhaps suggestive of the cause of death.”

After the sheriff posted in regards to the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by a number of Native Individuals, who stated publishing photographs of ancestral remains was offensive to their tradition.

Hable stated his workplace removed the submit.

"We didn’t imply for it to be offensive whatsoever,” Hable mentioned.

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

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

Goetsch said the Facebook put up “confirmed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the individual a Native American and referring to the remains as “somewhat piece of history.”

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

She mentioned the young man would have likely eaten a diet of vegetation, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, fairly than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many people at the moment wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, as a result of, like I mentioned, the glaciers have only retreated a few thousands years before that,” Blue mentioned. “That period, we don’t know a lot about it.”