Archaeologists exhumed the remains of 94 people including that of a young child with Down's syndrome who was buried approximately 1,500 years ago in eastern France. This case is a rare in archaeological history and suggests that the child was not stigmatized based on the proper burial.
The excavations happened in Chalon-sur-Saône. The skeleton has a broad, short and flattened skull base with thin cranial bones. Such features are found in people diagnosed with Down's syndrome.
Maite Rivollat and colleagues from the University of Bordeaux said the case shows the earliest example of Down's syndrome. They claimed that the five to seven year old child's skull had features consistent with Down's syndrome.
Down's syndrome is rare during the medieval 5th or 6th century period and scholars believe that children with features of Down's syndrome could have been put to death right after birth. Down's syndrome is a genetic disorder which delays the growth of a person. The disorder causes intellectual disability. People with the disorder have three chromosome 21 copies instead of the normal two. The disorder could have existed throughout history but it has been described only in the 19th century. There are only a few reported Down's syndrome cases in archaeological records.
The team studied how the child with apparent features of Down's syndrome was buried, a practice that does not appear to even be possible with other ancient cases of the disorder. The child was found to be placed on its back inside the tomb in an east-west orientation with the child's head at the westward end. This position is common with the dead skeletons at the necropolis.
A previous study presented the same argument that describes how a man with dwarfism was buried in Israel 1,500 years ago. The body was found to be buried the same way others were buried at the site and experts believe it was an indication that he was treated as a normal person in the society. However, some archaeologists still do not believe the argument, saying it is very hard to interpret cultural behavior and values from mere skeletal remains or burials.
