Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by chromas on Tuesday November 06 2018, @08:48PM   Printer-friendly

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)


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:02PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:02PM (#758681)

    Just like alabama today.

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:35PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:35PM (#758699)

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:43PM (#758707)

        Is it true that GP is an incel?

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:45PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:45PM (#758708)

        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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:30PM (#758721)

        Looks like we found the Alabama poster.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:54PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:54PM (#758731)

          Give them some slack - their heads are lop-sided.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @02:37AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @02:37AM (#758800)

            But they shure can play those fiddles.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @02:36AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @02:36AM (#758798)

      Southern illinios is worse.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:05PM (14 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:05PM (#758684)

    The genetic abnormalities suggest it must have been unusual to have to fuck your aunt to keep the tribe going.

    That suggests there must have been some kind of calamity that forced people into this decision.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:12PM (3 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:12PM (#758688) Journal
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by edIII on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:18PM (9 children)

      by edIII (791) on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:18PM (#758692)

      Not really. There was a time when there wasn't even a half-billion people on the planet. Instead of being able to walk a few miles and literally have tens of thousands of fertile females around you, there was a caveman that could travel weeks and months without even a hint of other females. If he did manage to find another tribe, there wasn't a guarantee that he wouldn't be killed by those males protecting their own females. He would never find a female on her own either.

      You see the same things with very small populations of animals, especially in captivity. Although that is managed to the best extent we can. Back in those times human life was fragile. There was a period of time, IIRC, where humanity was almost wiped out entirely. Meaning, less than 10,000 of us.

      It wasn't until we became more advanced and transitioned from hunter gathers to agriculture with basic infrastructure like housing that we could build up numbers to a more genetically viable population. The domestication of the dog probably helped quite a bit too, as the TFA plainly states these were people that had to deal with fucking sabre-toothed tigers. If finding somebody else other than your "aunt" meant dealing with those bastards, well, I think you will be fucking your aunt.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:27PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:27PM (#758696)

        "The domestication of the dog probably helped quite a bit too, as the TFA plainly states these were people that had to deal with fucking sabre-toothed tigers."

        -

        Dogs still help today, because today we have to deal with ghetto scum who ride a bus to the suburbs in their attempts to rob, rape, and pillage. Clueless naive idiots
        will mod this down, but after you've been mugged or raped your worldview will be more accurate, trust me.

        • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:40PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:40PM (#758703)

          you should be robbed and raped

          • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:46PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:46PM (#758709)

            Only incels write naïve without a diaeresis.

            • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:49PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:49PM (#758710)

              You can think whatever you like.

              Idiots usually do.

            • (Score: 5, Touché) by takyon on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:52PM

              by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:52PM (#758712) Journal

              It sure is ornery in here. Election rage containment zone in ~2 hours.

              --
              [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:41PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:41PM (#758705)

        If my aunt was a sabre-toothed tigers I wouldn't want to fuck her.

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:58PM

          by Bot (3902) on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:58PM (#758715) Journal

          >If my aunt was a sabre-toothed tiger
          I think the epithet is reserved to the mother in law.

          --
          Account abandoned.
        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:18PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:18PM (#758716)

          Sounds hot. I would.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 07 2018, @02:07AM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 07 2018, @02:07AM (#758789) Journal

        Your post is informative - common wisdom is that the human population was extremely low during most of mankind's history. At the same time, I wonder how accurate that common wisdom is.

        This particular study, for instance, seems to have a flaw. There are few places in the world where large numbers of human skeletons have been found. Mostly, there is a partial skeleton here, another partial there. When they find an entire skeleton, it's a lone representative of his tribe.

        We might build an argument that these individuals who were deformed and crippled were the most likely members of the tribe to be separated from the tribe, and culled. They died alone, trying to escape a predator, while the healthier members of the tribe escaped. We see this in real life, every day, in the natural world today. The weakest and slowest gazelle is the one taken by the lion.

        https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/10/437249183/south-african-cave-yields-strange-bones-of-early-human-like-species [npr.org]

        That Rising Star cave offers a wealth of human remains. Analysis may well prove that the ratio of deformities were much lower than this study concludes. Or - it may help to verify the conclusions. Time will tell.

        But, I strongly suspect that if mankind were experiencing very high rates of deformities, then mankind would not have survived.

        On another note, entirely, we do have records of early Greeks and Romans leaving deformed babies out for the wolves to eat. Possibly, these more "enlightened" people knew from experience that allowing deformed members of the tribe grow up and procreate would only lead to future deformities.

        Of one thing, I am sure. We are quick to jump to conclusions, based on little evidence.

  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday November 06 2018, @11:02PM (1 child)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Tuesday November 06 2018, @11:02PM (#758736) Journal

    Twenty comments in and it's all Beavis and Butthead commentary.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @11:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @11:41PM (#758755)

    VLM isn't crazy just super inbred?

    I wonder if we can get him a disability placard or something.

(1)