Minnesota kayakers uncover 8,000-year-old human skull

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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Last year, two kayakers in southwestern Minnesota found a fragment of a human skull that dates back nearly 8,000 years.

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According to the Renville County Sheriff’s Office, the kayakers happened upon the skull fragment in September while coursing the Minnesota River south of Sacred Heart, a city roughly 100 miles west of Minneapolis.

The kayakers sent the skull to local officials, who determined that the bone was human. The fragment was then sent to an FBI forensic anthropologist, who estimated via carbon dating that the skull belonged to a young man who lived between 5,500 and 6,000 BCE.

The forensic anthropologist also determined that the man had suffered a grievous head wound as evidenced by a depression in his skull. Additionally, the carbon data showed that the young man either had a diet heavy in fish or ate considerable amounts of maize, pearl millet or sorghum.

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(credit: Renville County Sheriff’s Office)



“The available science and technology are truly incredible, and we are fortunate to have the partners that we do to assist us in this investigation and to have come across this little piece of history,” the sheriff’s office said.

This fossil finding marks another in Minnesota belonging to Archaic period of cultures in North America, which archeologists mark from lasting between 1,000 to 8,000 BCE. The Archaic stage is characterized by cultures who supported themselves by eating nuts, seeds and shellfish prior to subsistence farming.

Another famous human fossil found in Minnesota dates back to the same period. In 1931, construction crews in Pelican Rapids in northwestern Minnesota found the skeletal remains of a teenage girl that are thought to be roughly 8,000 years old. The remains — dubbed the “Minnesota Woman” — were found with a dagger made of elk horn and a conch shell pendant.

 

Upvote 14
I read a story about that this week, pretty cool. The other thing I remember was that the person's diet did not match the area in which he was found.
 

Really? Interesting. I will have to look that up.
It says "Through reviewing the Carbon-14, this individual would have had a heavy marine diet or a diet high in maize, pearl millet, or sorghum, which is outside the range of the American diet."

For what it's worth.
 

It says "Through reviewing the Carbon-14, this individual would have had a heavy marine diet or a diet high in maize, pearl millet, or sorghum, which is outside the range of the American diet."

For what it's worth.
Pretty much open for interpretation on diet it looks like.
 

It says "Through reviewing the Carbon-14, this individual would have had a heavy marine diet or a diet high in maize, pearl millet, or sorghum, which is outside the range of the American diet."

For what it's worth.
I love it when they use / say Carbon 14 data to come up with this... its so far out of the realm of absolute truths.

pure speculation / imagination at best.
 

That’s a heck of a brow ridge. I’ll bet river finds like that are exciting but disappointing because it’s unlikely they’d find where it washed out
 

It says "Through reviewing the Carbon-14, this individual would have had a heavy marine diet or a diet high in maize, pearl millet, or sorghum, which is outside the range of the American diet."

For what it's worth.
Struck me as odd. By my supposing a marine diet vs one high in grains would affect teeth very differently.

A person could while traveling by following a water way , or riverine corridor ect. change diet to suit environment with a switch from sedentary farming /ag. diet to an nomadic opportunistic diet when stored/carried food plays out.
Or do both.

Bones can be a record of what went into them.
Dicey sorting out what and more so , when.
Had they leg or shoulder bones much more could be focused on for mobility/ranging often a distance or speed vs being more stationary , and labor.
 

Who knows where the majority of his life was spent and or how far he traveled from his native land before he died.:dontknow:
 

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