Deformed Skull Suggests Human Ancestors Had Compassion

A newly reconstructed deformed fossil skull suggests our human ancestors probably cared for deformed offspring for years.

From Wired Science:

The skull indicates that the child who lived about 530,000 years ago would have been severely handicapped — and yet survived at least five years and possibly several years longer. That suggests the parents or community provided the child with care, despite his or her obvious deformities.

"Her/his pathological condition was not an impediment to receiv[ing] the same attention as any other Middle Pleistocene Homo child," the the team of Spanish researchers write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read more ....