Frequent inbreeding may have caused skeletal abnormalities in early humans
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.
By and large, these were viewed as one-off curiosities. But Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, noticed a pattern: These skeletal deformations seemed to be suspiciously common in the fossil record.
An abundance of developmental anomalies and abnormalities in Pleistocene people (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1814989115) (DX)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:02PM (7 children)
Just like alabama today.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:35PM (5 children)
The above comment is not informative, it's just an IDIOTIC smartass comment by a jerkoff who is so stupid he cannot even capitalize a
proper noun.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:43PM
Is it true that GP is an incel?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:45PM
Off topic ?
FUCK YOU FAGGOTS.
YOUR ENTIRE LIVES ARE OFF TOPIC.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:30PM (2 children)
Looks like we found the Alabama poster.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:54PM (1 child)
Give them some slack - their heads are lop-sided.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @02:37AM
But they shure can play those fiddles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @02:36AM
Southern illinios is worse.