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

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

ByThe Associated Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial cranium that was found final summer time by two kayakers in Minnesota can 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 mentioned.

Thinking it could be associated to a missing individual case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical examiner and ultimately to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon relationship to determine it was possible 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 previous,” Hable told Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the man had a despair in his skull that was “perhaps suggestive of the reason for loss of life.”

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

Hable stated his workplace removed the put up.

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

Hable mentioned the remains shall be turned over to Higher Sioux Neighborhood tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Sources Specialist Dylan Goetsch mentioned in an announcement 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 stated the Facebook put up “confirmed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call 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, stated Wednesday that the cranium was positively from an ancestor of one of many tribes still residing within the space, The New York Instances reported.

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

“There’s probably not that many people at the moment wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, as a result of, like I mentioned, the glaciers have solely retreated a couple of 1000's years earlier than that,” Blue stated. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”