17,000-Year-Old Well-Preserved Remains of Blue-Eyed Baby Boy With Curly Hair Unearthed in Italy
Researchers unearthed an Ice Age baby back in 1998, and now, with modern methods, they can determine his appearance and health condition. The boy was dug out from the Grotta delle Mura cave in Monopoli, a town in the southeastern Puglia region, Live Science reported.
The baby's age was analyzed, and it was found to have lived around 17,000 years ago. Recent DNA examinations have revealed that the baby was a boy with curly hair. Findings regarding the Ice Age baby have been published in the journal Nature Communications.
Discovery of Ice Age Baby
The bones of the ice-age baby were located by archaeologist Mauro Calattini, one of the study’s co-authors, Smithsonian Magazine reported. The remains were found covered with rock slabs, and nothing else. No grave goods were surrounding the body.
The skeleton was more or less intact, which helped scientists to determine that the infant was somewhere between 7.5 and 18 months old. Radiocarbon dating determined that the remains were between 16,910 and 17,320 years old. This implied that the boy lived just a few centuries after the Last Glacial Maximum, Earth’s most ice-laden period.
Condition of the Remains
Alessandra Modi, an anthropologist at the University of Florence stated that ancient skeletons mostly are not found in conditions suitable for genetic analysis, because of degradation, Smithsonian Magazine reported. This is primarily because the burial place, over the years has been impacted by the warm climate.
In the case of the 'Ice Age baby of the Grotta delle Mura cave,' the remains were buried in a cool cave. This prevented the baby from being attacked by Puglian heat and hence was well-preserved. Researchers managed to garner 75 percent of the boy’s genome. "This enabled us to make robust conclusions about the infant’s ancestry, physical characteristics, and even certain health aspects," Modi added.
Physical Features
Analysis revealed that the boy's skin was darker to European standards but not as dark as a tropically acclimated person’s, Smithsonian Magazine. Modi stated that the baby had blue eyes, which has also been recorded in other ancient Western European hunter-gatherers.
The research team believes that the infant was the ancestor of the Villabruna cluster—a group of post-Ice Age people who lived up to 14,000 years ago. If this assertion turns out to be true, it implies that the Villabruna line started in southern Europe much before the end of the Ice Age.
Cause of Death and Health issues
Researchers examined the boy's genome and found that the infant suffered from familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an inherited heart condition, Smithsonian Magazine reported. In this condition, heart muscles thicken, which could eventually lead to fatal congestive heart failure. Experts believe that the condition possibly caused the boy's death.
The detailed analysis of the teeth found in the remains further revealed certain health stresses that could have impacted the infant. Experts think that the nine accentuated lines marking the infant’s teeth are indicative of "physiological stress events" that occurred before and after birth. Other indicators in the infant's body, reflect that the mother lived in one area during pregnancy and could have been malnourished.
They also noted a fracture in the collar bone, which could mean that the birth was difficult. Such discoveries reveal more about the cultural environment during the Last Glacial Maximum. Vanessa Villalba-Mouco, a paleogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology who wasn’t involved in the study said, "We are increasingly learning more about Ice Age populations, and this study adds a valuable piece to the puzzle."