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

A partial cranium from almost 8,000 years in the past that was found by two kayakers in a river final summer might 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 found final summer by two kayakers in Minnesota shall be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years outdated.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 stated.

Pondering it is likely to be related to a lacking particular person case or murder, Hable turned the skull over to a health worker and finally to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to determine it was likely the cranium of a younger 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 informed Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist decided the man had a depression in his cranium that was “maybe suggestive of the cause of demise.”

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by several Native Individuals, who said publishing photos of ancestral stays was offensive to their culture.

Hable mentioned his workplace removed the put up.

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

Hable mentioned the stays might be turned over to Upper Sioux Neighborhood tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Assets Specialist Dylan Goetsch mentioned 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 remains.

Goetsch mentioned the Facebook submit “showed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the individual a Native American and referring to the remains as “slightly piece of historical past.”

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

She mentioned the young man would have possible eaten a food plan of plants, 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 individuals at the moment wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years ago, as a result of, like I stated, the glaciers have solely retreated a couple of 1000's years before that,” Blue mentioned. “That period, we don’t know a lot about it.”