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

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

ByThe Associated Press

21 Could 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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in Minnesota shall be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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

Thinking it might be associated to a missing person case or murder, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical expert and eventually to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to find out it was seemingly the cranium of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable mentioned.

"It was a whole shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable advised Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist decided the man had a depression in his skull that was “perhaps suggestive of the cause of loss of life.”

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

Hable stated his workplace eliminated the publish.

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

Hable stated the remains can be turned over to Higher Sioux Neighborhood tribal officers.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Sources Specialist Dylan Goetsch said in a press release that neither the council nor the state archaeologist were notified concerning the discovery, which is required by state legal guidelines that govern the care and repatriation of Native American stays.

Goetsch said the Facebook put up “confirmed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “just a little piece of history.”

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

She stated the young man would have possible eaten a food plan of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, rather than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

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