Europe's largest Copper Age tomb: children's bones show ancient health crisis

https://phys.org/news/2026-05-europe-largest-copper-age-tomb.html

by gmays • 2 months ago

37 6 2 months ago

phys.org

binaryturtle2• 2 months ago

cloudflare blocked. :-(

rawgabbit• 2 months ago

Scientists found evidence tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases ravaged the population.

binaryturtle2• 2 months ago

Thanks for the quick summary.

jbotz• 2 months ago

Actually, no. We don't know anything about the "population" because there are no attempts here to look at what percentage of living people/children were affected. We only know that of those children who died, a lot of them had had these specific indications of these specific illnesses (and we can probably assume that in many cases those were the direct or indirect cause of death).

Respiratory infections (like tuberculosis) in a population that uses indoor open fires for cooking and heat aren't exactly a big surprise; breathing indoor smoke causes chronic respiratory inflammation, which in turn weakens the immune system and makes the lungs more susceptible to infection.

abrowne• 2 months ago

Source article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187998172...

poulpy123• 1 month ago

Among them were individuals who had undergone skull surgery (trepanation)

I can imagine having a piece of my skull removed without anesthetics, disinfectants, antibiotics and pain relievers

Europe's largest Copper Age tomb: children's bones show ancient health crisis

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