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

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

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

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in Minnesota can be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years outdated.

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

Pondering it could be associated to a lacking particular person case or murder, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and ultimately to the FBI, the place a forensic anthropologist used carbon courting to find out it was seemingly the cranium 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"It was an entire shock to us that that bone was that outdated,” Hable informed Minnesota Public Radio.

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

After the sheriff posted in regards to the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by several Native Individuals, who said publishing photographs of ancestral stays was offensive to their tradition.

Hable stated his workplace removed the post.

"We didn’t mean for it to be offensive by any means,” Hable said.

Hable mentioned the remains might be turned over to Upper Sioux Community tribal officers.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Assets Specialist Dylan Goetsch stated 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 stays.

Goetsch said the Fb put up “showed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the individual a Native American and referring to the stays as “a bit of piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, said Wednesday that the cranium was definitely from an ancestor of one of many tribes nonetheless living within the space, The New York Times reported.

She stated the younger man would have likely eaten a weight loss program of vegetation, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, relatively than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

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