Madrid, Jun 26 (EFE).- It is known that Neanderthals took care of the injured, the elderly and people with disabilities, but it is not clear if they did so out of altruism.
Now, the discovery in Spain of the remains of a girl with Down syndrome has cleared up doubts: she was six years old and she was cared for with love and compassion.
The remains of Tina, as researchers who made the discovery named her, show this Neanderthal had a very hard life, due to a series of congenital malformations that would have made her survival in the Paleolithic impossible without help from her group.
The details of the research, led by Mercedes Conde Valverde, from the Chair of Evolutionary Optoacoustics, were published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
The study was carried out with scientists from the UCM-ISCIII Research Center on Human Evolution and Behavior, and the universities of Valencia, Leon and Burgos, among other centers.
Tina’s remains were excavated at the archaeological site of Cova Negra, Valencia, in 1989, they are between 273,000 and 146,000 years old – when Neanderthals were at their peak in the Iberian Peninsula – and were found along with the remains of other children.
“Although scientifically it was not possible to know if the bone was from a boy or a girl, we have always seen it as a girl, perhaps because the majority of the researchers who signed the article are girls. That is why we call her ‘Tina.’ in honor of Valentin Villaverde, the director of the excavation who has dedicated almost his entire life to this site,” Conde-Valverde told EFE.
Analyzing the remains from the site, the team found a small portion of the bone from the petromastoid region of the ear, “the temporal bone that protects the inner ear,” Conde-Valverde said.
To determine whether it was our species or a Neanderthal, they did a reconstruction of the inner ear with images that allowed a three-dimensional model of the inner ear cavities to be made. The result showed the proportions of a Neanderthal ear and “an abnormal thickening” in the lateral canal. .
Although this thickening is related to several syndromes, “the only syndrome compatible with the set of malformations present is Down syndrome,” Conde-Valverde said.
Due to three of these malformations, that girl’s life “was not easy.” “She probably had deafness or a fairly severe lack of hearing. In addition, she would have balance problems and vertigo attacks, so she would probably need a lot of care from others,” Conde-Valverde said.
It is known that ancient humans and Neanderthals took care of their sick, but until now it was not clear why they did so.
“When the individual who needs help is an adult, there is a question of whether the behavior is altruistic (“I help you because I want to”) or whether it is done to return the favor to someone who has been an active part of the group (“today for you, tomorrow for me’)”, the anthropologist said.
To survive, Tina needed a lot of help.
“Just because of the ear pathologies, it is likely that they had to carry her in their arms, and she may have had more ear infections than the rest of the children, that she cried more, and other associated things. But if she is also a person with Down syndrome, she has added conditions. I mean, I don’t think her life was easy,” she said.
Tina died aged 6, a long time for a girl with these congenital problems, which shows she had to receive a lot of direct or indirect help, the researcher said.
The team said Tina received the care of her group for a long time and they had to be more motivated by love and compassion than by reciprocity.
This, they said, shows “collaborative care and parenting were common in Neanderthals, behaviors that make them much more human and demonstrate that we are all included in human evolution.”
“They were people very similar to us,” the researcher said. EFE
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