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

A partial cranium from practically 8,000 years ago that was found by two kayakers in a river final summer season will likely be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Associated Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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in Minnesota shall be returned to Native American officers after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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

Considering it is likely to be associated to a missing person case or homicide, Hable turned the cranium over to a health worker and ultimately to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to find out it was likely the skull of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable said.

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

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

After the sheriff posted in regards to the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by several Native People, who mentioned publishing photos of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable said his workplace removed the publish.

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

Hable said the remains shall be turned over to Higher Sioux Neighborhood tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Sources Specialist Dylan Goetsch mentioned in a statement 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 remains.

Goetsch mentioned the Facebook post “showed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “slightly piece of history.”

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

She stated the young man would have probably eaten a diet of crops, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, rather than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s most likely 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 a number of thousands years before that,” Blue said. “That interval, we don’t know a lot about it.”