Ancient skeleton with ‘extremely rare form of dwarfism’ dating back 5,000 years unearthed in China
AN EXTREMELY rare ancient skeleton has been found in China.
The remains are of a human who would have suffered from a very uncommon form of dwarfism around 5,000 years ago.
The skeleton was unearthed at a burial site near the Yellow River in east-central China.
It was found alongside the remains of other people who lived between 3300 and 2900 BC.
All of the skeletons were found with their hands on top of their bodies apart from the skeleton with dwarfism.
Instead, the hands were tucked behind its back.
"The ancient historical texts show that they may, in fact, have been revered in some situations."
The skeleton's teeth enabled the archaeologists to determine that it was the remains of a young adult.
They also discovered that the skeleton had short limbs and a small head and trunk.
In more common forms of dwarfism the limbs grow disproportionately smaller than the head and torso.
The world's most gruesome ancient burials
Here's some of the most haunting archaeological discoveries ever made...
- Shackled skeletons: A mass grave in an ancient Greek cemetery was found to contain 80 skeletons all with their wrists clamped in iron shackles; archaeologists think they were victims of a mass execution but why this happened remains a mystery
- Mass child sacrifice: The remains of nearly 270 children sacrificed to the gods 500 years ago were recently found in a gruesome ancient mass grave in Peru
- Family massacre: Archaeologists recently discovered that a 5,000 year old mass grave site was the result of a tragic family massacre; the burial site in Poland contains the bodies of men, women and children who all had their skulls smashed to pieces
- Bog bodies: In 1950, experts found a bog body with a "face so fresh they could only suppose they had stumbled on a recent murder." The corpse, referred to as the Tollund man, is probably the most well-preserved body from pre-historic times in the whole world
In other archaeology news, a dog walker found a 65million-year-old ‘ichthyosaur’ skeleton on the beach thanks to his sharp-nosed dogs.
A lost Ancient Greek civilisation invented ‘single-use cups’ because ‘no one wanted to do the washing up’ 3,500 years ago.
And, from vagina impalement to ‘death by elephant’ – history’s most gruesome execution methods revealed.
What do you think of the rare skeleton discovery? Let us know in the comments...
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