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

A partial cranium from almost 8,000 years ago that was discovered by two kayakers in a river last summer will probably be returned to Native American officers in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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in Minnesota can be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years outdated.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

Pondering it may be associated to a lacking particular person case or murder, Hable turned the skull over to a health worker and ultimately to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to determine it was possible the cranium of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

"It was a complete shock to us that that bone was that old,” Hable informed Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist decided the person had a melancholy in his skull that was “perhaps suggestive of the cause of dying.”

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by a number of Native Individuals, who said publishing pictures of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable stated his office eliminated the publish.

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

Hable mentioned the stays can be turned over to Upper Sioux Group tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Sources Specialist Dylan Goetsch mentioned 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 put up “showed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the individual a Native American and referring to the remains as “just a little piece of historical past.”

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

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

“There’s most likely not that many people at the moment wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years ago, as a result of, like I stated, the glaciers have only retreated just a few hundreds years earlier than that,” Blue said. “That period, we don’t know a lot about it.”