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Part of skull dating back almost 8,000 years found in Minnesota River

New Delhi, IndiaEdited By: Sayan GhoshUpdated: May 20, 2022, 08:11 PM IST
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Photograph:(Twitter)

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The Renville County authorities said that the discovery was made last summer, and the county sheriff Scott Hable sent it to the medical examiners in order to determine whether it was related to a missing persons case.

Two people came across a human skull while kayaking on the Minnesota River and further investigation and testing showed that the skull was around 8000-year-old. The Renville County authorities said that the discovery was made last summer, and the county sheriff Scott Hable sent it to the medical examiners in order to determine whether it was related to a missing persons case.

However, the answer that the county office received was beyond their wildest imaginations. The report said that the skull belonged to a young man who died between 5500 and 6000 B.C.

“That it was human, it was that of a young man, and, most surprisingly, that it was, they thought, about 8,000 years old. It was a complete shock to us that that bone was that old,” Hable said.

Hable further added that the man ‘likely ate a marine diet including maize and sorghum’ and there was an injury on the recovered skull which was “perhaps suggestive of the cause of death.”

However, the police were criticised for posting pictures of the skull online. “We had no idea but we were alerted to the fact that that Facebook post was offensive to one or more people and so we have since taken that post down. We didn’t mean for it to be offensive whatsoever,” Hable said.

The remains are likely to belong to the tribal communities residing in Minnesota and the state archaeologists said that they will be turning the remains over to Upper Sioux Community tribal officials.

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