Ancient genomes reveal Down Syndrome in past societies

Burials show that children with Down Syndrome and Edwards Syndrome were recognized as members of their communities. Aerial view of the Early Iron Age settlement of Alto de la Cruz, Navarra, during the 1989 excavation campaign. Servicio Patrimonio Histórico Gobierno de Navarra - An international team of researchers has analysed the DNA from a world-wide sample of nearly 10,000 ancient individuals to search for cases of Down Syndrome, an uncommon genetic condition caused by the presence of an additional copy of Chromosome 21. Scanning the genome data, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany, found six children with Down Syndrome. Five of these children were buried more than 2,000 years ago and lived to, at most, one year of age. Although their lives were short, all'of these children received a burial, often with grave goods, showing that they were appreciated as members of their ancient societies. For many years, researchers at MPI-EVA have been collecting and analyzing ancient DNA from humans who lived during the past tens of thousands of years.