Well-Preserved Skeletal Remains Yield Details of Child’s Short Life

MONOPOLI, ITALY—Genetic analysis shows that a 16-month-old child who died some 17,000 years ago was male and had blue eyes, dark skin, curly dark hair, and congenital heart disease, according to a Live Science report. The analysis of the baby’s remains, which were discovered by Mauro Calattini of the University of Siena under two rock slabs in southern Italy’s Grotta delle Mura in 1998, also identified signs of inbreeding and poor development. Owen Alexander Higgins of the University of Bologna, anthropologist Alessandra Modi of the University of Florence, and their colleagues determined that the child was related to an ancestral group of Ice Age hunter-gatherers known as the Villabruna cluster, and that his parents were likely to have been first cousins who lived in a small group. Analysis of strontium isotopes in the child’s tooth enamel indicates that his mother had stayed in the local area during the last months of her pregnancy. Her poor health may have restricted her movements, the scientists explained. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature Communications. To read about 14,000-year-old footprints of a family uncovered in a northern Italian cave, go to "Upper Paleolithic Cave Life."