Anthropologists from the University of Washington, USA, found that many people of the Pleistocene era had developmental abnormalities. A press release with the research results was published on Phys.org.
Scientists have studied the remains of people who lived during this period, which began 2.6 million years ago and ended 11.7 thousand years ago, and discovered unusual features of the development of the skeleton. In particular, in many sites from China to the Czech Republic, femurs with an uncharacteristic bend were found, the skull of a baby from the Kafzeh cave in Israel was unusually swollen, and the right humerus of a man from Liguria (Italy) was curved with a normal left.
Based on these findings, researcher Erik Trinkaus calculated the frequency of skeletal pathologies in ancient people. He then compared the data with the anomalies found among our contemporaries. It was found that about two-thirds of ancient pathologies are now found in less than one percent of people, and about ten are not noted at all in modern medical practice.
Examples of developmental anomalies in Pleistocene people. Photo: Erik Trinkaus.
Trinkaus believes that deviations occurred more often due to the widespread inbreeding, when close relatives interbred with each other.
Earlier, researchers found that Neanderthals were not stocky and hunched over "macho" with pumped-up breasts, but the owners of good posture and very large lungs, which contradicts the classical ideas about "cavemen". This is the conclusion reached by scientists who restored the chest of Neanderthals and described it in the journal Nature Communications.