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

A partial skull from practically 8,000 years ago that was found by two kayakers in a river last summer season shall be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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

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

Thinking it is likely to be associated to a missing individual case or homicide, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical examiner and ultimately to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to determine it was possible the cranium of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable mentioned.

"It was a whole shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable instructed Minnesota Public Radio.

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

After the sheriff posted concerning the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by a number of Native Americans, who stated publishing photos of ancestral remains was offensive to their tradition.

Hable said his workplace removed the post.

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

Hable stated the stays might be turned over to Higher Sioux Group tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Sources 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 stated the Facebook publish “showed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “just a little piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, stated Wednesday that the cranium was definitely from an ancestor of one of many tribes still dwelling within the space, The New York Occasions reported.

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

“There’s most likely not that many individuals at the moment wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, as a result of, like I mentioned, the glaciers have solely retreated a few hundreds years before that,” Blue stated. “That interval, we don’t know much about it.”