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

A partial skull from nearly 8,000 years in the past that was found by two kayakers in a river final summer shall be returned to Native American officers in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 Could 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

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Minnesota will probably be returned to Native American officials after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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.

Considering it might be related to a missing person case or murder, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical expert and finally to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to determine it was probably the skull of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

"It was an entire shock to us that that bone was that old,” Hable told Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the man had a despair in his cranium that was “perhaps suggestive of the cause of dying.”

After the sheriff posted in regards to the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by a number of Native People, who mentioned publishing pictures of ancestral stays was offensive to their culture.

Hable mentioned his office eliminated the submit.

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

Hable stated the stays can be turned over to Higher Sioux Community tribal officers.

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

Goetsch said the Facebook post “confirmed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name 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 University, mentioned Wednesday that the skull was definitely from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless dwelling within the area, The New York Times reported.

She mentioned the young man would have possible eaten a weight loss plan of vegetation, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, rather than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many individuals at that time wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I said, the glaciers have only retreated a few 1000's years before that,” Blue said. “That period, we don’t know a lot about it.”