\u201cThese findings provide new evidence in the ongoing debate about the origins of complex behaviors such as interpersonal violence, the care of injured or ill individuals, and funerary practices,\u201d Ana Pantoja P\u00e9rez, the study\u2019s first author and an archaeologist at Spain\u2019s National Research Center for Human Evolution, said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n A rediscovered injury <\/p>\n Excavations at Qafzeh Cave, in what is now Israel, during the 1930s and again in the 1970s uncovered the remains of at least 27 individuals. Among them was Qafzeh 25, a partial adult skeleton, likely male, unearthed in 1979. Its initial placement in the cave suggested it was intentionally buried, perhaps in a very early funeral practice, according to the study.<\/p>\n For the latest analysis, the team used an \u201cintegrated approach\u201d to gain a clearer picture of Qafzeh 25\u2019s anatomy, as the statement explained. As a result, the researchers found a \u201cseries of bone anomalies\u201d affecting the left side of the individual\u2019s jaw. Fascinatingly, there were signs of bone remodeling that indicated that the injury was healing while the individual was alive. In addition, the team also clocked some enamel defects and hidden cavities in its teeth.<\/p>\n Accident or conflict? <\/p>\n As is typically the case with archaeological discoveries, the team can only make educated guesses as to what might have happened, in this case the source of the injury. It\u2019s entirely possible that the individual sustained the wound in an accident, for instance, while out hunting. However, the researchers believe there is a good chance the wound was caused by interpersonal conflict. For example, facial injuries resulting from interpersonal conflicts have a higher chance of being on the left side, assuming that the assailant was right-handed.<\/p>\n This, in combination with sharp-force trauma\u2014in itself rare in ancient human fossils\u2014\u201crenders an interpersonal interpretation more plausible than an accidental one, even if the latter cannot be categorically ruled out,\u201d they wrote. In any case, that the fossil record showed signs of healing indicates the individual did survive the injury. To the researchers, that supports the \u201cnotion of resilience and possible care within the community,\u201d according to the paper.<\/p>\n A social animal <\/p>\n For obvious reasons, investigating aspects of the human past such as violence, care of the sick, and funerary behavior is very challenging. But when the opportunity does arrive, these discoveries shed light on the ways in which humans have cared about their community. That was true even if, strictly speaking, their presence was a \u201cburden,\u201d such as the discovery of a Pazyryk woman who outlived her jaw injury and surgery<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ultimately, these findings represent \u201cfundamental aspects for understanding the social and cultural evolution of our species,\u201d Pantoja P\u00e9rez concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even today, a stab to the face is considered a fairly serious injury. So, one can imagine how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[18380,241780,16086,79],"class_list":["post-755700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-archaeology","tag-early-humans","tag-paleontology","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Olympus](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/cut-qafzeh-25-dental.jpeg\")
A close-up of Qafzeh 25\u2019s jaw, showing a fracture. Credit: Spain National Research Center for Human Evolution <\/p>\n