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

A partial skull from almost 8,000 years ago that was discovered by two kayakers in a river final summer season shall be returned to Native American officers in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial cranium that was discovered final summer season by two kayakers in Minnesota shall be returned to Native American officers after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years outdated.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 said.

Considering it is likely to be associated to a missing person case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and finally to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to determine it was seemingly the cranium of a younger 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 told Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the person had a depression in his cranium that was “maybe suggestive of the reason for demise.”

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

Hable said his office removed the put up.

"We didn’t mean for it to be offensive in anyway,” Hable mentioned.

Hable said the remains will likely be turned over to Upper Sioux Group tribal officials.

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

Goetsch mentioned the Fb put up “showed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the individual a Native American and referring to the stays as “a little piece of history.”

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

She stated the young man would have likely eaten a food regimen of crops, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, moderately than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s in all probability not that many individuals at that time wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years ago, because, like I said, the glaciers have solely retreated just a few thousands years earlier than that,” Blue mentioned. “That period, we don’t know a lot about it.”