(ORDO NEWS) — Scientists from the University of Liverpool have discovered that human remains found on the territory of a medieval monastery in Poland belonged to a man with two forms of dwarfism.
The cemetery is located in a small village, where only a few hundred people now live, but once there was a small fortified city here.
In the 12th century, Catholics from the Cistercian order founded a monastery in the city, and around 1450 a cemetery was placed here.
When archaeologists excavated the monastery cemetery in 1990, they found more than 400 graves, including the body of a man who lived in the 9th-11th centuries.
His grave was located on the wall of the fortress of the monastery, which caused bewilderment among scientists, since such burials were not practiced in medieval Poland.
Recently, scientists studied the skeleton in more detail and found that the man had multiple skeletal developmental disorders. In particular, the man probably had two different forms of dwarfism.
A disproportionate skull, narrow spinal canals, short ribs, and protruding pelvic bones indicated he had achondroplasia, a dwarfism in which a person has very short arms and legs, but a medium-sized torso.
In addition, based on the man’s twisted elbows and palate structure, the team determined that the man had a rare disease called Lery-Weil dyschondrosthesis.
Previously, this combination of diseases had never been seen in the remains of people from the medieval period in Central Europe.
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.