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

A partial skull from nearly 8,000 years ago that was found by two kayakers in a river last summer season will probably be returned to Native American officers in Minnesota

ByThe Associated Press

21 Might 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull that was discovered final summer 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 skull within the drought-depleted Minnesota River about 110 miles (180 kilometers) west of Minneapolis, Renville County Sheriff Scott Hable stated.

Pondering it may be related to a lacking person case or murder, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical examiner and finally to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to find out it was possible the skull of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable said.

"It was a whole shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable instructed Minnesota Public Radio.

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

After the sheriff posted in regards to the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by a number of Native Americans, who said publishing photos of ancestral stays was offensive to their tradition.

Hable said his workplace eliminated the post.

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

Hable stated the stays will likely be turned over to Upper Sioux Community tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Resources Specialist Dylan Goetsch stated in an announcement that neither the council nor the state archaeologist have been notified in regards to the discovery, which is required by state laws that govern the care and repatriation of Native American stays.

Goetsch mentioned the Facebook put up “confirmed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the individual a Native American and referring to the remains as “a little bit piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, stated Wednesday that the skull was positively from an ancestor of one of the tribes nonetheless living within the area, The New York Times reported.

She mentioned the younger man would have possible eaten a diet of vegetation, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, reasonably than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many people at that time wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years ago, as a result of, like I stated, the glaciers have only retreated a number of thousands years earlier than that,” Blue said. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”