Scientists have discovered what they say are the fossils of the world’s first known elderly human with clear signs of ageing and impairment.
Researchers at the Complutense University of Madrid and the Carlos III Institute of Health, who found the remains from a site called Sima de los Huesos in Spain, believe the ancient bones date back to 500,000 years ago.
A prehistoric pelvis, nicknamed “Elvis,” and other fossilised bones found from the site are believed to be of an elderly man who lived in Spain and was a member of the species Homo heidelbergensis — a type of ancient human thought to be exclusive to Europe and ancestral only to Neanderthals.
According to lead author Alejandro Bonmati, modern humans are thought to descend from the Middle Pleistocene African species Homo rhodesiensis. Since that species and Homo heidelbergensis shared a common “grandfather species” around one million years ago, “this (elderly male) individual would belong to our ‘uncle’ species, meaning he is not ancestral but closely related,” Bonmati told Discovery News.
Bonmati and his colleagues unearthed the lower back and pelvis for the aged individual along with some 6,000 other fossils at the site, which was once likely home to numerous humans from the now-extinct species. —PTI