July
24
/ 2014
A new study published in the journal PLOS ONE has revealed the discovery of a Paleolithic child who appears to have suffered extensive brain damage after an injury, but survived for years afterwards. The child, who lived 100,000 years ago, would have been unable to care for himself or herself, so people must have spent years looking after the child. The finding dispels beliefs that parenting in the Paleolithic was excessively harsh. The child’s skeleton was first unearthed decades ago in the Qafzeh cave system in Galilee, Israel, along with 27 other partial skeletons, stone tools and hearths. However, only recently have technological advancements enabled scientists to perform detailed studies on the child’s skull through CT scanning and 3D reconstruction
