Ana Gracia a,1, Juan Luis Arsuaga a,b,1, Ignacio Martínez a,c, Carlos Lorenzo d, José Miguel Carretero e,
José María Bermúdez de Castro f and Eudald Carbonell d
-Author Affiliations
aCentro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolución y Comportamiento Humanos, c/ Sinesio Delgado 4, Pabellón 14, 28029 Madrid, Spain;
bDepartamento de Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain;
cÁrea de Paleontología, Departamento de Geología, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Spain;
dInstitut de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social-Area de Prehistoria, Facultat de Lletres, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Plaça Imperial Tarraco 1, 43005 Tarragona, Spain;
eDepartamento de Ciencias Históricas y Geografía, Facultad de Humanidades y Educación, Universidad de Burgos, 09001 Burgos, Spain; and
fCentro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, Avenida de la Paz 28, 09004 Burgos, Spain
Contributed by Juan Luis Arsuaga, February 12, 2009 (received for review October 7, 2008)
Abstract
We report here a previously undescribed human Middle Pleistocene immature specimen, Cranium 14, recovered at the Sima de los Huesos (SH) site (Atapuerca, Spain), that constitutes the oldest evidence in human evolution of a very rare pathology in our own species, lambdoid single suture craniosynostosis (SSC). Both the ecto- and endo-cranial deformities observed in this specimen are severe. All of the evidence points out that this severity implies that the SSC occurred before birth, and that facial asymmetries, as well as motor/cognitive disorders, were likely to be associated with this condition. The analysis of the present etiological data of this specimen lead us to consider that Cranium 14 is a case of isolated SSC, probably of traumatic origin. The existence of this pathological individual among the SH sample represents also a fact to take into account when referring to sociobiological behavior in Middle Pleistocene humans.
human evolution paleopathology sociobiology congenital skull deformation
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: agracia@isciii.es orjlarsuaga@isciii.es
Author contributions: A.G. designed research; A.G., I.M., C.L., and J.L.A. performed research; A.G., J.L.A., I.M., C.L., J.M.C., J.M.B.d.C., and E.C. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; A.G. and J.L.A. analyzed data; and A.G., J.L.A., and I.M. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
See Commentary on page 6429.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0900965106/DCSupplemental.
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NOTA CAUSTICANTE DESTE BLOGGER:
Hoje os Homo sapiens sapiens aplicam pena de morte sem formação de culpa de seres humanos de formas bem desumanas: genocídio em larga escala, mas sanitizado como sendo questão de saúde pública...
Fui, sem saber por que, mas pensando que devemos perdoar post-mortem todos os que foram julgados no Tribunal de Nuremberg...
