According to Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis, skeletal deformations of 66 individuals, who lived within the last 200,000 years in the Middle East and Eurasia, happened due to birth defects.
Very interestingly, researchers have suggested, ‘people born with abnormalities were seen as shamans and given careful burials that made their bodies more likely to be preserved’. He also suggests that ‘most early humans are believed to have lived in small, isolated populations’, he said, which ‘could have led to inbreeding and harmful mutations’.
This observations on individuals, which according to Erick Trinkaus, were born some 200,000 years ago, is not only mindless utterances but understanding on the meaning of ‘shamans’ is completely wrong; ‘shamans’ were ‘sramanas’ or the enlightened monks or the Bhikshus and that is the reason why they are given a ‘careful burial’. The practice is still preserved. This news has been flashed by Arch. News on 6.11.2018 quoting Science Magazine