Minnesota Woman
Encyclopedia
"Minnesota Woman" is the name given to the skeletal remains of a woman believed to be at least 10,000 years old. The bones were found near Pelican Rapids, Minnesota
on June 16, 1931, during construction on U.S. Route 59
. The bones were brought to Dr. Albert Jenks at the University of Minnesota
, who identified them as the bones of a woman who was mature, but who had never borne children. The woman had two artifacts—a conch shell pendant and a dagger made from an elk's horn.
The road crew dug up the site without an investigation by archaeologists
, so some of the exact details of the woman's death were hard to determine. The site indicated that the woman had not been ritually buried, and there was a thin layer of broken clam or mussel shells over the body. This led to the hypothesis that the woman had drowned, either by breaking through the ice or by falling off a boat, and that her body had been covered in mud at the bottom of a glacial lake.
Before 1926, most scientists theorized that human beings had only appeared in America within the last couple thousand years. The discovery of Minnesota Woman provided evidence that humans had been in America for many thousand years before that. Scientists now recognize the girl as a Paleo-Indian whose ancestors had come across the Bering land bridge
during the Pleistocene
Ice age
. Radiocarbon dating
places the age of the bones between 5000 BC and 1000 BC, somewhere near the end of the Eastern Archaic period.
Pelican Rapids, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 2,374 people, 884 households, and 558 families residing in the city. The population density was 905.8 people per square mile . There were 962 housing units at an average density of 367.0 per square mile...
on June 16, 1931, during construction on U.S. Route 59
U.S. Route 59
U.S. Route 59 is a north–south United States highway . A latecomer to the U.S. numbered route system, U.S. 59 is now a border-to-border route, Part of NAFTA Corridor Highway System. It parallels U.S. Route 75 for nearly its entire route, never much more than away, until it veers southwest...
. The bones were brought to Dr. Albert Jenks at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, who identified them as the bones of a woman who was mature, but who had never borne children. The woman had two artifacts—a conch shell pendant and a dagger made from an elk's horn.
The road crew dug up the site without an investigation by archaeologists
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, so some of the exact details of the woman's death were hard to determine. The site indicated that the woman had not been ritually buried, and there was a thin layer of broken clam or mussel shells over the body. This led to the hypothesis that the woman had drowned, either by breaking through the ice or by falling off a boat, and that her body had been covered in mud at the bottom of a glacial lake.
Before 1926, most scientists theorized that human beings had only appeared in America within the last couple thousand years. The discovery of Minnesota Woman provided evidence that humans had been in America for many thousand years before that. Scientists now recognize the girl as a Paleo-Indian whose ancestors had come across the Bering land bridge
Bering land bridge
The Bering land bridge was a land bridge roughly 1,000 miles wide at its greatest extent, which joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia at various times during the Pleistocene ice ages. Like most of Siberia and all of Manchuria, Beringia was not glaciated because snowfall was extremely light...
during the Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
Ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
. Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...
places the age of the bones between 5000 BC and 1000 BC, somewhere near the end of the Eastern Archaic period.