Feature Anthropology

Evolution’s Youth Movement

Fossil children may harbor clues to humanity's origins

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Anthropologists usually don’t find the skeletons of long-dead toddlers when digging into ancient ground. But at Syria’s Dederiyah Cave, they did just that in 1993 and again in 1997.

Hipbones of ancient human children, such as these fragmentary remains from an approximately 3-year-old youngster excavated in Israel’s Qafzeh Cave, are in many respects shaped much like those of same-age Neandertals and modern Homo sapiens, a new study finds.