Bones reveal first evidence of Down syndrome in Neanderthals

https://www.science.org/content/article/bones-reveal-first-evidence-down-syndrome-neanderthals ^ | June 26, 2024 | Andrew Curry

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More than 146,000 years ago, Neanderthals hunted birds and other game during short stays at a Spanish cave called Cova Negra. Anthropologists studying the bones they left behind came across one that stood out: a part of the skull that contains the inner ear bones just a few centimeters long, from a child who lived to about age 6.

The bone displays a handful of tiny anomalies most commonly found in people with Down syndrome today. The child likely had this condition and had hearing loss, scientists report today in Science Advances—the oldest known example of the condition. If confirmed, the finding would add to the evidence that our close cousins cared for vulnerable members of their communities...

High-resolution scans of the tiny inner ear bone revealed a spiraling interior that is notably smaller than in other Neanderthals. Combined with other unusual formations in the complex structure of the inner ear, researchers say the abnormalities clearly indicate the child was born with Down syndrome. Mercedes Conde-Valverde, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Alcalá, says she hopes to recover DNA to confirm the child carried the extra chromosome.

If those bony anomalies led to the same outcome in Neanderthals as they do in living humans, the child's ability to communicate with other members of the group would have been limited and it could have had trouble walking because of balance issues and vertigo...

Because the child was born with its condition, the findings at Cova Negra suggest something different: that the Neanderthals looked after members of the group simply because they cared for them, not because they expected to be repaid in material terms.

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Scans of a Neanderthal child's inner ear revealed anomalies consistent with Down syndrome.

Mercedes Conde-valverde et al.

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