They Still Don't Get It

Article from newscientist.com Early humans may have cared for disabled young 14:03 31 March 2009 by Ewen Callaway A recently unearthed ancient human skull shows signs of a disorder that might have caused mental retardation. This offers the earliest evidence that ancestors of Homo sapiens did not abandon young with severe birth defects. The 500,000-year-old skeleton belonged to a five to 12-year-old child who suffered from craniosynostosis. The rare congenital condition occurs when two of the flat bones that make up the skull fuse together along their margins (sutures) too early during fetal development, hindering brain growth. Spanish researchers discovered the first pieces of the skull near Atapuerca, Spain, in 2001, but they only recently pieced enough of it together to make a conclusive diagnosis. "We were sure we had evidence of a real pathology," says Ana Gracia, a palaeoanthropologist at Complutense University in Madrid, who led the new study. "It's obvious – you only have to look at the cranium." Different Appearance The child suffered from a form of craniosynostosis that occurs in about 1 in every 200,000 children. He or she was a member of the species Homo heidelbergensis, – early humans that lived in Europe up to 800,000 years ago and may have given rise to Neanderthals. The discovery marks the earliest example of a human skeleton with signs of a physical deformity that that might have made the individual dependent on others for survival. Most animals, including primates, sacrifice or abandon young born with crippling deformities, Gracia says. It's impossible to know whether the child suffered from any cognitive problems, but he or she would undoubtedly have looked different from family and friends, she says. Rest of article.

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When are the scientists and evolution folks finally going to get it that humankind is NOT an animal, duh! Within their paradigm, they cannot explain the presence of flowers in the graves of so-called "Neanderthals." It is totally outside their realm of accepted "animal" experience. And yet there are plenty of accounts that demonstrate that so-called "animals" mourn the loss of a loved one. Today we have so-called Homo Sapiens Sapiens ("Modern Man") who routinely torture, starve, abuse and kill their own children in various ways, and show no remorse or grief whatsoever. So who is truly "human," and who is not? You tell me.