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

A partial skull from almost 8,000 years ago that was discovered by two kayakers in a river last summer time will be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 Might 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull that was discovered last summer by two kayakers in Minnesota will probably be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined 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.

Pondering it could be associated to a lacking particular person case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and eventually to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to determine it was possible the skull of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable said.

"It was an entire shock to us that that bone was that old,” Hable told Minnesota Public Radio.

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

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

Hable said his office eliminated the post.

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

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

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Assets Specialist Dylan Goetsch said in an announcement that neither the council nor the state archaeologist were notified concerning the discovery, which is required by state legal guidelines that govern the care and repatriation of Native American stays.

Goetsch stated the Fb post “confirmed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “a little bit piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, mentioned Wednesday that the cranium was undoubtedly from an ancestor of one of many tribes still residing within the space, The New York Occasions reported.

She mentioned the young man would have likely eaten a eating regimen of vegetation, 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 people at that time wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, as a result of, like I stated, the glaciers have solely retreated a number of thousands years before that,” Blue stated. “That interval, we don’t know a lot about it.”