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

A partial cranium from almost 8,000 years in the past that was found by two kayakers in a river last summer will probably be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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

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

Pondering it is perhaps related to a missing particular person case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and finally to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to find out it was seemingly the skull of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable mentioned.

"It was a whole shock to us that that bone was that old,” 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 concerning the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by a number of Native People, who mentioned publishing images of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable said his workplace removed the publish.

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

Hable mentioned the remains might be turned over to Upper Sioux Neighborhood tribal officers.

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

Goetsch mentioned the Facebook submit “showed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “slightly piece of history.”

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

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

“There’s most likely not that many individuals at that time wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I said, the glaciers have only retreated a few hundreds years earlier than that,” Blue stated. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”