He conk out around 28,000 twelvemonth ago and was swallow up in southerly France , but now thanks toa modern reconstructionwe can gaze upon the face of a Cro - Magnon man . And it turns out he likely had monolithic lumps and warts cover up his countenance , a result of a genetic disease .
The remain on which the reconstruction is based were discover 150 eld ago in a rock shelter in the south - western Gallic hamlet of Les Eyzies , which was called Abri de Crô - Magnon . This gave rise to the name not only of the fogy itself , but then became synonymous with all European other modern humans , although nowadays most anthropologists do prefer to use the latter .
At the time it was found in 1868 the skull was the oldestHomo sapienremains found in anywhere in Europe , a record book that has since been pushed back to around 43,000 years ago . The significance of Cro - Magnon 1 means that it has been incredibly well - study over the preceding years , which has bring to light up a number of rummy marks on the surface of the skull .
A raw subject area , release this week in the medical journalThe Lancet , has re - examined these blemishes and conclude that they may well have been the effect of benign tumors growing on his face .
The team took the skull and placed in it a CT scanner to get a three - dimensional vista of the bone , allowing the researchers to examine it in keen detail . It turned out that previous account for the lesion – such as one in which it was hint that the mark come about after death – did not keep back out .
Instead , it seems that the deformed pearl occurred in life , and match with the diagnosing that the ancient Isle of Man had benign tumors grow on his face ordered with a genetic condition known as neurofibromatosis type 1 . Today , the disease affects about 1 in every 3,000 the great unwashed , and the symptom incline to originate over a period of years , with the severeness varying from someone to someone .
The examination of Cro - Magnon 1 suggests that he had a peculiarly large growth on his forehead , in improver to smaller tumors condense around the mouth and eyes . The facial reconstruction has been made to reflect this specific pathology .
A recent reconstructive memory of one ofthe earliest known Britons , base on late genetic analysis , show that the first New humans in Europe may well have had darker skin than we are used to think . As always , though , it is impossible to be 100 per centum certain , and so in reality we may never really make love what these former ancestors truly look like .
