Ear Bones Suggest Prehistoric Aquatics
Submitted by coldrum on Monday, 09 April 2007 Page Views: 979
Other ArchaeologyDetermining the daily activities of prehistoric people is difficult without written records, but scientists have figured out a way to identify individuals who often engaged in intense water-related activities, such as diving, surfing and fishing.The clue is in their ears.
According to a paper accepted for publication in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, abnormal ear canal bone masses, called auditory exostoses, can be linked to aquatic activities. Like a sort of skeletal tattoo, the masses mark the remains of some early individuals.
"Auditory exostoses can develop when the ear is exposed to cold water (below around 66.2 degrees Fahrenheit) and/or to warmer water chilled by the action of cold atmospheric temperature and/or strong winds," explained Sabine Eggers, who worked on the study with Célia Boyadjian and Maria Okumura.
Eggers, a researcher in the Biological Anthropology Laboratory in the Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Säo Paulo, Brazil, analyzed 676 skeletons dating from 5,000 years ago to more recent times from 27 coastal and inland native Brazilian groups. As predicted, few inlanders possessed the bone masses, but many coastal groups had them.
The study confirms earlier speculation about exostoses, which have been identified in ancient skeletal remains from Yugoslavia, the Canary Islands, Middle Europe, other parts of South America and even Imperial Rome.
For more, including fishing, diving, and surfing, see Discovery.com.
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