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

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

ByThe Related Press

21 Might 2022, 19:10

• 3 min read

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial skull that was found last summer season by two kayakers in Minnesota will likely be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years old.

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

Considering it might be related to a lacking individual case or murder, Hable turned the cranium over to a medical expert and eventually to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to determine it was doubtless the skull of a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable said.

"It was an entire shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable advised Minnesota Public Radio.

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

After the sheriff posted in regards to the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by a number of Native Americans, who mentioned publishing images of ancestral stays was offensive to their tradition.

Hable said his workplace removed the put up.

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

Hable mentioned the stays will be turned over to Upper Sioux Community tribal officers.

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

Goetsch stated the Facebook publish “confirmed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to name the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “a bit of piece of history.”

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

She mentioned the younger man would have doubtless eaten a weight loss program of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, slightly than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s in all probability not that many individuals at the moment wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, as a result of, like I said, the glaciers have solely retreated a few thousands years earlier than that,” Blue said. “That period, we don’t know a lot about it.”