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

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

ByThe Associated Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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Minnesota will likely be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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

Thinking it may be associated to a missing person case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a health worker and finally to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to find out it was likely the cranium of a younger 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 decided the man had a depression in his skull that was “perhaps suggestive of the reason for dying.”

After the sheriff posted concerning the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by several Native Individuals, who stated publishing photographs of ancestral stays was offensive to their culture.

Hable stated his workplace removed the submit.

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

Hable said the stays will likely be turned over to Upper Sioux Neighborhood tribal officers.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Resources Specialist Dylan Goetsch stated in a press release 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 stays.

Goetsch said the Fb post “showed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the individual a Native American and referring to the remains as “a bit piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, stated Wednesday that the skull was undoubtedly from an ancestor of one of the tribes still living in the space, The New York Instances reported.

She mentioned the young man would have possible eaten a weight loss program of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, quite than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

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