They slowed down their metabolism and slept for months, which can be seen in the changes in their bone structure.

According to a new theory, Neanderthal people and their ancestors could have slept during harsh winters. Scientists have based their assumption that traces of the winter sleep remained in the petrified skeletal remains, The Guardian reported Sunday.

The researchers examined fossil skeletal remains found in a 400,000-year-old mass grave excavated at the Sima de los Huesos (Broken Bones) archaeological site in Spain. After their analysis, they came to the conclusion that prehistoric peoples protected themselves from the extremely cold winter by sleeping.

According to the researchers, the injuries and other damage to the fossilized bones of early humans are the same as those seen in the bones of hibernating animals. And this suggests that prehistoric people struggled with cold winters by slowing down their metabolism and sleeping for months.

Archaeologists have found fossilized skeletal remains of dozens of people over the past three decades in excavations at the Sima de los Huesos cave in Atapuerca, northern Spain. The cave is only accessible through a perpendicular descending axis 13 meters deep.

Scientists say that the cave is actually a mass grave. The petrified bones are more than 400,000 years old and may have been the remains of early Neanderthals or their ancestors.

One of the most important paleontological archaeological sites on Earth has so far provided a key insight into the European history of human evolution. Based on their research, a study published in the journal L’Anthropologie, they have now enriched this story with an unexpected theory.

As Juan-Luis Arsuaga and Antonis Barciokas, a scientist at the University of Democritus in Greece, who led the first excavations, reported this in their study: Their study showed that their bones were seasonally disrupted for a few months each year.

It may seem like science fiction

They claim that these early people “entered a state of metabolism that helped them survive the harsh conditions with a limited amount of food and sufficient body fat.” They slept through a winter sleep, and traces of him remained due to changes in the development of their bones.

Scientists have acknowledged that their theory may sound like “science fiction”, but as they have pointed out, many mammals, including primates like eared marmots or lemurs, sleep in hibernation. “This suggests that the genetic basis and physiology of such a reduced metabolism may have survived in many species of mammals, including humans,” argued Arsuaga and Barciokas.

The lesions seen on the bones found in Sima Cave are similar to those seen on the bones of hibernating animals, including cave bears. “Winter sleep may have been the only solution for them to survive the harsh conditions for months in a cave,” the study authors explained. Scientists say their theory is also supported by the fact that the remains of a cave bear were also found in Sima Cave, making it more plausible that prehistoric people did the same to survive cold and scarcity. of food than bears.

The authors also examined counterarguments related to their theory. Among them is that the Inuit and the Sami also live in cold and harsh conditions, but do not sleep in a winter sleep. According to Arsuaga and Barciokas, because the fat from fatty fish and reindeer provides enough food for the Inuit and the Sámi even in winter. However, the drought in Iberia at that time could not provide enough high-fat food for those who lived in the cave of Sima in the cold winters, so they had no choice but to sleep in the cave during this period.

However, according to British experts cited by The Guardian, there may be other explanations for the changes found in the fossilized bone remains, and the study authors’ theory is certainly controversial. Chris Stringer, a scientist at the Natural History Museum in London, noted that large mammals, such as bears, don’t actually sleep in hibernation because they can’t lower their internal temperature enough. Instead, they fall into a shallow sleep called lethargy.

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