Work

Antemortem trauma and survival in the late Middle Pleistocene human cranium from Maba, South China

Year: 2011

Type: article

Abstract: Paleopathological assessment of the late Middle Pleistocene archaic human cranium from Maba, South China, has documented a right frontal squamous exocranially concave and ridged lesion with endocranial protrusion. Differential diagnosis indicates that it resulted from localized blunt force trauma, due to an accident or, more probably, interhuman aggression. As such it joins a small sample of pre-last glacial maximum Pleistocene human remains with probable evidence of humanly induced trauma. Its remodeled condition also indicates survival of a serious pathological condition, a circumstance that is increasingly documented for archaic and modern Homo through the Pleistocene.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1117113108

Authors: Xiu-Jie Wu, Lynne A. Schepartz, Wu Liu, Erik Trinkaus

Institutions: Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, University of the Witwatersrand, Washington University in St. Louis

Language: English

Topic: Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

Subfield: Anthropology

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences