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

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

ByThe Associated Press

21 Might 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

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in Minnesota might be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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

Thinking it could be associated to a lacking particular person case or murder, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical expert and finally to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to find out it was probably 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 man had a despair in his skull that was “maybe suggestive of the cause of dying.”

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by a number of Native Individuals, who said publishing images of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable said his workplace removed the submit.

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

Hable stated the remains shall be turned over to Upper Sioux Neighborhood tribal officers.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Assets 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 legal guidelines that govern the care and repatriation of Native American remains.

Goetsch mentioned the Fb post “showed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the individual a Native American and referring to the remains as “a bit piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, stated Wednesday that the cranium was positively from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless dwelling in the area, The New York Occasions reported.

She stated the young man would have possible eaten a weight loss plan of vegetation, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, rather than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many people at that time wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I said, the glaciers have solely retreated a number of 1000's years before that,” Blue stated. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”