Officers who were kayaking on a partially dried-out Lake Minnesota lake about 180 miles west of Minneapolis were surprised to find a human skull at the bottom.
A forensic anthropologist used a carbon dating and after an in-depth examination, determined that most likely, the skull belonged to a young man who lived between 5500 and 6000 BC. “It was a complete shock for us to find out that this is actually so old,” said Scott Hubble, Sheriff of Renville County. The anthropologist determined that the man suffered from a bone disease that “may indicate the cause of death.”
After the sheriff’s office published a post about the discovery, he was forced to absorb criticism from a number of Indians, who informed him that posting pictures of human bones was a violation of their culture as they could belong to their ancestors. Hubble was forced to remove the post. “We did not intend to hurt the feelings of our neighbors,” he said.
He further added that the remains will be handed over to the Minnesota Council’s cultural resources expert, Dylan Getch. The expert said the council had not received notice of the skull discovery, which is required by state law. He added that the Facebook post “indicates a lack of cultural sensitivity” by referring to the remains as a “piece of history”. Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota State, said Wednesday that the skull belonged to an ancestor of one of the tribes still living in the area.
She claimed that apparently, the young man was feeding on plants, fish and turtles. “Probably not too many humans roamed Minnesota 8,000 years ago. The glaciers receded only a few thousand years before. We still do not know much about that period,” Blue said.