The oldest tumor ever discovered was just discovered in the fossilized remains of a Neanderthal found near Krapina, Croatia over a hundred years ago.
The specimen lived more than 120,000 years in the past, making this tumor the oldest ever discovered by 100,000 years.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the Croatian National History Museum examined the rib of the Neanderthal with a CT scanner, creating digital slices of the bone, which showed fibrous dysplasia - a benign bone growth - within it. This condition causes unnatural growth in the bones it inhabits. This disorder affects modern humans, as well.
Although the diet and lifestyle of Neanderthals was significantly different than the modern day, this discovery shows that these beings suffered from some of the same maladies that afflict us today. Although such tumors can be precipitated by a fracture, the condition of the bone and tumor showed this was not the case for this individual.
"They didn't have pesticides, but they probably were sleeping in caves with burning fires. They were probably inhaling a lot of smoke from the caves. So the air was not completely free of pollutants - but certainly, these Neanderthals weren't smoking cigarettes," David Frayer, an anthropologist from the University of Kansas, said.
This medical condition begins before birth and is linked to a mutation in genes, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. The actual cause of the tumor is unknown. The disorder replaces the inside of the bone, which normally looks like a web, with fibrous tissue. The growth is not cancerous and will not spread to other parts of the body.
"They range all the way from being totally benign, where you wouldnt recognize them, to being extremely painful. [From] the size of this one, and the bulging of it, [it] probably caused the individual pain," Frayer said.
The story of this bone begins in 1899 in Krapina. That's when Dragutin Gorjanovic-Kramberger, a palentologist, discovered a large quantity of fossilized remains and Neanderthal artifacts scattered around an archeological site. Around 900 Neanderthal fossils were recovered from the location in northern Croatia.
The piece of rib showing cancer is less than 1.25 inches long. It had been x-rayed in the 1980's, but the growth was not revealed at that time.
The discovery was publisized in the online journal PLOS ONE.
