The well-preserved remains of a child who died 17,000 years ago in what is now Italy show that he had blue eyes, dark skin and curly hair. Scientists have uncovered the life story of an Ice Age child who lived in southern Italy about 17,000 years ago, revealing that the child likely died of a congenital heart defect.
While the cub’s tiny remains also showed signs of poor development and inbreeding, DNA analysis showed the child was male and likely had blue eyes, dark skin and curly hair ranging from dark brown to almost black, according to a newly published study. September 20 in the journal Nature Communications.
Mauro Calattini, an archaeologist from the University of Siena and one of the authors of the study, found the boy’s grave in 1998 during an excavation of the Grotta delle Mura cave in the town of Monopoli in southeastern Puglia. Italian boots. The grave was covered with two stone slabs and inside was a well-preserved and intact baby skeleton. There was no inventory and this was the only burial found in the cave.
It is rare to find well-preserved remains of a child who lived from a short time later.
The last glacial maximum, 20,000 years ago, was when the ice sheets were at their largest. Places like Southern Italy were slightly warmer than other parts of Continental Europe at the time and likely provided shelter for the people who buried the child.
Analysis of the skeleton showed that the child died at approximately 1 year and 4 months of age. The child’s teeth showed as many as nine accentuated lines, or signs of physiological difficulties; This showed that the child had a difficult life even while growing in the womb.
“Detailed analysis of the baby’s teeth allowed us to make inferences about the health and stress experienced by the baby and/or mother during pregnancy, something we rarely have the opportunity to study with such precision,” study co-author Owen Alexander said. he said. Higgins, an archaeologist at the University of Bologna, and Alessandra Modi, an anthropologist at the University of Florence, told Live Science in an email.
Some difficulties, especially before birth, may have arisen from the child’s mother. The team examined isotopes, or variations of elements with different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei, in the child’s tooth enamel. Isotopes from drinking water and diet find their way into a growing person’s teeth, providing clues as to where they live. “Strontium isotope analysis also showed that the mother remained in the area during the late pregnancy,” Higgins and Mody wrote. he said. According to researchers, restricted mobility of the mother may be associated with poor health, which in turn may affect the fetus.
DNA analysis also showed that the child had mutations in two genes involved in the production of heart muscle proteins (TNNT2 and MYBPC3). These mutations often lead to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a largely genetic disease in which the walls of the left ventricle thicken and stiffen over time, meaning the heart cannot receive or pump enough blood with each heartbeat. This may have contributed to the child’s early death, according to researchers.
DNA analysis also showed that the child was genetically related to a group of Ice Age hunter-gatherers from an ancestral group called the Villabruna cluster. The presence of the Villabruna ancestors 17,000 years ago marked the first time researchers knew for certain that such groups existed on the Italian peninsula before the end of the Ice Age. According to the researchers, the child most likely belonged to a small group of ancestors who settled in Sicily and southern Italy. Because the group was small, inbreeding was not uncommon, as evidenced by the boy’s parents.
“Analysis of the nuclear genome shows a high degree of consanguinity between parents who are likely first cousins,” Higgins and Mody write. he said. Although inbreeding was not common among Paleolithic people, the small group size combined with isolation made it quite common among hunter-gatherers in southern Italy, where the boy came from, he added.
Source: Port Altele
