Anthropologists have recovered a rib from a site in Krapina, Croatia that belongs to our ancestors called Neanderthals. Scrutiny of the same has led to discovery of a benign bone tumor that affects modern day humans too.

Known as fibrous dysplasia, the tumor is earliest known bone tumor as per the records. Other tumors discovered were found in our ancestors that lived approximately 100,000 years after Neanderthals. The findings were published in the journal PLOS ONE.

According to David Frayer, an Anthropologist at the University of Kansas, the people at those times must have suffered from it because of burning fires in the caves where they slept. Inhaling a lot of smoke from these fires gave rise to tumors in them, added Frayer, who co-authored the new paper.

He said that possibly fire in caves was the reason as in those times the people did not use pesticides and also did not smoke.

“It is perfectly logical to assume that these Neanderthal men, who spent day and night in the open, eating a simple diet, had to be less prone to illnesses we have today”, said Dragutin Gorjanovic-Kramberger, a Paleontologist who excavated a cave near Krapina in
1899. However, evidences show that they suffered from diseases like arthritis, periodontitis, and tuberculosis as well.