Practically 8,000-year-old skull present in Minnesota River

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

ByThe Associated Press

21 Might 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

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Minnesota will probably be returned to Native American officers after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years outdated.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

Pondering it could be related to a lacking individual case or homicide, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical examiner and finally to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to determine it was probably the skull of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable mentioned.

"It was an entire shock to us that that bone was that previous,” Hable advised Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the man had a depression in his cranium that was “maybe suggestive of the cause of death.”

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by several Native People, who said publishing photographs of ancestral stays was offensive to their tradition.

Hable said his workplace removed the publish.

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

Hable stated the remains shall be turned over to Upper Sioux Neighborhood tribal officers.

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

Goetsch stated the Fb submit “showed an entire lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the person a Native American and referring to the remains as “a bit piece of history.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State College, said Wednesday that the skull was positively from an ancestor of one of many tribes still residing within the space, The New York Instances reported.

She mentioned the younger man would have seemingly eaten a food regimen of crops, 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 around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, because, like I said, the glaciers have solely retreated just a few 1000's years before that,” Blue mentioned. “That interval, we don’t know a lot about it.”