iStock/Thinkstock(ROME) — Remains from nearly 20,000 years ago are allowing scientists to learn more about the development of brains.
The 17,000-year-old skull, found in the southern Italian region of Calabria’s Grotta del Romito, belonged to a child between 10 and 12 years old. Now scientists are using the skull to recreate a model of a Paleolithic human brain with 3-D scanners.
Fabio Macciardi, a neuroscientist at the University of California Irvine, said there are no other samples found from the same period.
“It’s unique because before the only way to study between us and homosapiens was to make a comparison with monkeys,” he said.
According to Macciardi, the brain will help researchers understand how social interaction, spatial coordination and language progressed, plus they will learn more about what the hunter-gatherers ate.
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