Ancient skull raises questions of caring

[question everything]

Ancient skull raises questions of caring

By John Noble Wilford
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

April 7, 2005

The toothless skull of an early human ancestor discovered in the Caucasus may attest to evolution's oldest known example of compassion for the elderly and handicapped, scientists reported today.

Other experts agreed that the discovery was significant, but cautioned that it might be a stretch to interpret the fossil as evidence of compassion.

The well-preserved skull, found in the republic of Georgia, belonged to a male Homo erectus about 40 years old. All his teeth, except the left canine, were missing. Regrowth of bone indicated that the man had been toothless for at least two years before he died at what was then an old age.

In their report in the journal Nature, the discovery team said the 1.77-million-year-old skull "raises questions about alternative subsistence strategies in early Homo." Specifically, how could the man have survived that long, unable to chew the food of a meat-eating society?

In interviews and in the current issue of National Geographic, the paleoanthropologists said caring companions might have helped the toothless man by finding soft plant food and hammering raw meat with stone tools so he could "gum" his dinner. If so, they said, this was evidence of a kind of compassion that had been absent in the ancestral fossil record before the Neanderthals 60,000 years ago.

More..

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050407/news_1n7noteeth.html

[KlatooBNikto]

1. Alternatively, there might have been a compassionate dinosaur with

a meals on wheels service with prechewed meat regurgitated for the Homo Erectus.

[Inland]

2. Maybe he was kept as pet by supersmart aliens.

Prove me wrong.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Wow! Liberals have a LONG history! n/t

[Hugin]

4. Did they find a fossilized feeding tube?

There was sure to be one around somewhere.

[CornField]

5. The funny thing is... some folks actually find this shocking. LOL!

[zipplewrath]

6. This isn't a solitary case

There are several histories of human, and prehuman species which obviously must have "cared" for others. They find skeletons with
severely damaged legs, which subsequently "healed". The suggestion being that for some period of time, someone else must have been bringing food and water. If I were an anthropologist, I'd probably do some study into the "compassion" effect for a species and how it helps or hinders the development of the group.