Almost 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 season shall be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Associated Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial cranium that was discovered final summer by two kayakers in Minnesota shall be returned to Native American officials after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years old.

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

Pondering it could be associated to a missing individual case or homicide, Hable turned the cranium over to a health worker and finally to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to find out it was possible the cranium 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 advised Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the man had a melancholy in his cranium that was “perhaps suggestive of the reason for death.”

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

Hable stated his office removed the post.

"We didn’t imply for it to be offensive in anyway,” Hable mentioned.

Hable stated the stays will probably be turned over to Upper Sioux Group tribal officials.

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

Goetsch mentioned the Fb publish “showed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the individual a Native American and referring to the remains as “a little piece of history.”

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 Times reported.

She mentioned the younger man would have seemingly eaten a food regimen of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, reasonably than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many individuals at the moment wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years ago, because, like I mentioned, the glaciers have only retreated just a few thousands years earlier than that,” Blue said. “That interval, we don’t know much about it.”