Kayakers discover 8000-year-old human skull in river
A pair of kayakers in the US have made a gruesome discovery as they paddled along the popular Minnesota river.
Kayakers have stumbled upon a human skull that was nearly 8000 years old, according to US authorities.
On Wednesday, the Renville County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota said two kayakers made the incredible discovery back in September 2021, according to FOX 9.
Forensic analysis has now been conducted on the bone. The findings from the forensic anthropologist suggest the skull belonged to a young adult male, who may have suffered blunt force trauma due to a depressed area on the fragment.
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Officials used carbon-14 analysis to date the bone, determining that the man was alive sometime between 5500-6000BC – around 8000 years ago.
“Carbon-14 from the atmosphere via food is incorporated into bones while the bones are maturing,” the sheriff’s office said.
“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,” the sheriff’s office said.
The find is one of several found in the area belonging to the Archaic period of North American cultures, ranging between 8000 to 1000BC. The period was characterised by cultures who supported themselves by eating nuts, seeds and shellfish prior to subsistence farming.
Another famous archaeological find 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 thought to have lived around the year 5900BC. The remains – dubbed the “Minnesota Woman” – were found with a dagger made of elk horn and a conch shell pendant.
This story originally appeared in Fox News and has been reproduced with permission
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