An ancient skeleton unearthed in Israel may contain the oldest evidence of brain damage in a modern human.
The child, who lived about 100,000 years ago, survived head trauma for several years, but suffered from permanent brain damage as a result, new 3D imaging reveals.
Sign up for Science news delivered to your inbox
Given the brain damage, the child was likely unable to care for himself or herself, so people must have spent years looking after the little boy or girl, according to the researchers who analyzed the 3D images. People from the child's group left funerary objects in the youngster's burial pit as well, the study authors said.
Those signs of care for a disabled person suggest that the roots of human compassion go way back, said Hélène Coqueugniot, an anthropologist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at the University of Bordeaux in France, and lead author of the study.
"It is some of the most ancient evidence of compassion and altruism," Coqueugniot said.
The child's skeleton was first uncovered decades ago in a cave site known as Qafzeh in Galilee, Israel, which also contained 27 partial skeletons and bone fragments, as well as stone tools and hearths. [See Images of the Damaged Skull and Skeleton]
The child, whose sex couldn't be determined, was found with a visible fracture in the skull and a pair of deer antlers placed across the chest.
The researchers wanted to know more about the damage to the child's skull, so they created a cast of the interior of it and then used computed tomography (CT) scanning to create a 3D picture of the head.
The images revealed that the child suffered a blunt-force trauma at the front of the skull that created a compound fracture, with a piece of bone depressed in the skull. It wasn't clear whether child abuse or an accident caused the injury, the researchers concluded.
-- Tia Ghose, Live Science
This is a condensed version of an article that originally appeared in Live Science. Read the entire story here. Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+.
- Top 10 Mysteries of the First Humans
- In Photos: 'Alien' Skulls Reveal Odd, Ancient Tradition
- Image Gallery: Our Closest Human Ancestor
Copyright 2014 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.