By Michael PriceNov.
5, 2018 , 3:05 PM
Early humans faced countless
challenges as they fanned out of Africa: icy conditions, saber-tooth cats, and,
according to a new study of ancient skeletons, an unusually high number of
birth defects, both debilitating and relatively inconsequential. It’s unclear
why such abnormalities seem to be so common, but scientists say one strong
possibility is rampant inbreeding among small hunter-gatherer groups.
“This paper represents a valuable
compilation,” says Vincenzo Formicola, an anthropologist at the University of
Pisa in Italy who wasn’t involved in the new work. “Many cases reported in the
list were unknown to me and, I assume, to many people working in the field.”
Many human fossils from the
Pleistocene (roughly 2.5 million B.C.E. to 9700 B.C.E.) have unusual features.
For example, femur bones with abnormal bowing have been found from China to the
Czech Republic. The skull of a toddler found in the Qafzeh cave in Israel had a
swollen braincase consistent with hydrocephalus, a condition in which fluid
floods the skull. And a fossilized man in Liguria in Italy had a bowed right
upper arm bone but a normal left one.
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