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

A partial cranium from nearly 8,000 years ago that was found by two kayakers in a river last summer time can be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Associated Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull that was found last summer time by two kayakers in Minnesota will be returned to Native American officers after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years previous.

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

Considering it is likely to be associated to a missing individual case or murder, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and eventually to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to find out it was possible the skull of a young 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 told Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the person had a despair in his cranium that was “maybe suggestive of the cause of loss of life.”

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

Hable stated his workplace removed the put up.

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

Hable stated the stays will probably be turned over to Higher Sioux Community tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Sources 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 remains.

Goetsch said the Facebook submit “confirmed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the individual a Native American and referring to the stays as “a bit piece of history.”

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

She said the younger man would have doubtless eaten a weight loss plan of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, fairly 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 ago, because, like I mentioned, the glaciers have only retreated just a few thousands years before that,” Blue mentioned. “That interval, we don’t know much about it.”