Scientists from the University of Liverpool discovered that human remains found on the territory of a medieval monastery in Poland belonged to a man with two types of dwarfism. Research published International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.
The cemetery is located in a small village where only a few hundred people currently live, but there was once a small fortified city here. In the 12th century, Catholics from the Cistercian order established a monastery in the city, and around 1450 a cemetery was placed there.
Archaeologists excavated the monastery cemetery in 1990 and found more than 400 graves, including a man who lived in the 9th and 11th centuries. His tomb was located in the wall of the monastery’s castle, which caused astonishment among scholars, since such burial rites were not practiced in medieval Poland.
Recently, scientists examined the skeleton in more detail and found that the man had multiple skeletal developmental disorders. Specifically, the man probably had two different forms of dwarfism.
A disproportionate skull, narrow spinal canals, short ribs, and protruding pelvic bones indicated that a person had achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism in which he had very short arms and legs but a medium-sized torso.
Also, based on the man’s bent elbows and palate, the team determined that the man had a rare condition called Lery-Weil dyschondrothesis.
Previously, this combination of diseases had never been seen in the remains of medieval-era people in Central Europe.
Source: Gazeta
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