• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

17,000-Year-Old DNA Reveals Ice Age Infant Had Blue Eyes And Was A Product Of Incest

November 4, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Ancient DNA from the skeleton of a baby who lived and died in southern Italy 17,000 years ago has painted a fascinating picture of the ill-fated infant and offers a rare snapshot into ancient life. His remains were found in such good nick that, all these millennia later, researchers have been able to reconstruct details of his life and death with unprecedented precision.

Discovered in a cave in southern Italy in 1998, the “infant of Grotta delle Mura” died at around 7.5 months to 1.5 years of age. He was 82 centimeters (32 inches) tall and likely had blue eyes, curly dark hair, and brown skin – a combination quite common in central and southwestern Europe in the Upper Paleolithic.

Advertisement

His remains, which were found beneath slabs of rock, were remarkably well-preserved, astonishing considering their advanced age – radiocarbon dating places them between 17,320 and 16,910 years old. Because of this, the researchers have been afforded a rare glimpse into the unfortunate infant’s characteristics, development, health, death, and ancestry.

Upper Palaeolithic infant from Grotta delle Mura

The infant was found in the Grotta delle Mura in 1998.

Image credit: Higgins et al., Nature Communications, 2024 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Genetic analyses revealed that the child probably suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy – a hereditary condition in which the heart muscle becomes thickened – which may have had a hand in his untimely death.

The team also unveiled that the toddler’s parents were closely related – probably first cousins. It’s something that is “rarely found in the Paleolithic, but more common during the Neolithic,” study author Dr Alessandra Modi, from the University of Florence, explained in a translated statement.

A closer look at the little boy’s teeth revealed health struggles before and after birth. At least nine episodes of physiological stress are evident – we don’t know what caused them but “their number draws a picture of severe physical stresses throughout his development and life,” the study authors write.

Advertisement

Isotopes in the teeth suggest the child’s mother had low mobility in the last months of pregnancy and may have been malnourished. In addition, a fracture found in the baby’s collarbone hints that his birth was a difficult one.

17,000-year-old teeth analysis

Analysis of the infant’s teeth provided information about his and his mother’s lives.

Image credit: Higgins et al., Nature Communications, 2024 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

“This pioneering study, which combines different techniques for analyzing skeletal remains, has provided an unprecedented view of the growth and living conditions of a child who lived in a key period for the settlement of the Italian peninsula, also allowing us to gather information about the mother and the hunter-gatherer groups of the time,” said Stefano Benazzi, Professor of Physical Anthropology at the University of Bologna.

In the grand scheme of things, the infant of Grotta delle Mura offers a unique insight into this period of human history, providing another piece of the genetic puzzle in the Italian peninsula 17,000 years ago.

“This study has led to the reconstruction of the oldest genome in Italy,” David Caramelli, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Florence, added. “[It reveals] significant changes in the population of southern Italy at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, with the arrival of groups from the Balkans, who colonized Italy from the North-East and then descended towards the southernmost regions of the peninsula.”

Advertisement

It’s quite the legacy for one so young.

The study is published in Nature Communications.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Audi launches its newest EV, the 2022 Q4 e-tron SUV
  2. Dinosaur Prints Found Under Restaurant Table Confirmed As 100 Million Years Old
  3. Archax: Japanese Engineers Make Transformer Robot That Actually Works
  4. How Do We Know There Is Anything Beyond The Observable Universe?

Source Link: 17,000-Year-Old DNA Reveals Ice Age Infant Had Blue Eyes And Was A Product Of Incest

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Martian Mudstone Has Features That Might Be Biosignatures, New Brain Implant Can Decode Your Internal Monologue, And Much More This Week
  • Crocodiles Weren’t All Blood-Thirsty Killers, Some Evolved To Be Plant-Eating Vegetarians
  • Stratospheric Warming Event May Be Unfolding In The Southern Polar Vortex, Shaking Up Global Weather Systems
  • 15 Years Ago, Bees In Brooklyn Appeared Red After Snacking Where They Shouldn’t
  • Carnian Pluvial Event: It Rained For 2 Million Years — And It Changed Planet Earth Forever
  • There’s Volcanic Unrest At The Campi Flegrei Caldera – Here’s What We Know
  • The “Rumpelstiltskin Effect”: When Just Getting A Diagnosis Is Enough To Start The Healing
  • In 1962, A Boy Found A Radioactive Capsule And Brought It Inside His House — With Tragic Results
  • This Cute Creature Has One Of The Largest Genomes Of Any Mammal, With 114 Chromosomes
  • Little Air And Dramatic Evolutionary Changes Await Future Humans On Mars
  • “Black Hole Stars” Might Solve Unexplained JWST Discovery
  • Pretty In Purple: Why Do Some Otters Have Purple Teeth And Bones? It’s All Down To Their Spiky Diets
  • The World’s Largest Carnivoran Is A 3,600-Kilogram Giant That Weighs More Than Your Car
  • Devastating “Rogue Waves” Finally Have An Explanation
  • Meet The “Masked Seducer”, A Unique Bat With A Never-Before-Seen Courtship Display
  • Alaska’s Salmon River Is Turning Orange – And It’s A Stark Warning
  • Meet The Heaviest Jelly In The Seas, Weighing Over Twice As Much As A Grand Piano
  • For The First Time, We’ve Found Evidence Climate Change Is Attracting Invasive Species To Canadian Arctic
  • What Are Microfiber Cloths, And How Do They Clean So Well?
  • Stowaway Rat That Hopped On A Flight From Miami Was A “Wake-Up Call” For Global Health
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version