According to archaeologists studying the skeletal remains of teenagers who lived in Europe between 10,000 and 30,000 years ago, most Ice Age adolescents began puberty at the same time as modern humans. However, physical maturation was delayed in some individuals, possibly due to their challenging and dangerous lifestyles.
A group of international researchers examined the skeletons of 13 adolescents found at seven archaeological sites in Italy, Russia, and the Czech Republic.
Ancient Teenagers and Growth Spurts
Newborns are born with about twice the number of bones as adults; during childhood, these bones grow and later fuse together by the age of 18-25.
The researchers examined around a dozen skeletons from the Late Ice Age, including a skeleton from Arene Candide in Italy (shown here) to determine when adolescents reached important puberty milestones. (Photo: Mila Tomsich).
The researchers were able to identify the stage of puberty attained in 11 out of the 13 Ice Age individuals. They found that these ancient teenagers experienced growth spurts between the ages of 13-16, similar to the age range of 12.5 to 14 in modern foraging groups.
Moreover, Ice Age adolescents also reached adulthood between the ages of 16-21. This suggests that some ancient teenagers spent more time in adolescence compared to their counterparts in Western societies, who typically reach adulthood between 16-18 years of age.
The lead author of the study, Mary Lewis, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Reading in the UK, stated that while it is not surprising that ancient Homo sapiens underwent the same developmental stages as we do, it is surprising that they began puberty at the same age – 13.5 years old – “indicating that this age aligns with a potential ‘genetic blueprint’ for the onset of sexual maturation in humans.”
“There is a common misconception that today’s teenagers are entering puberty much earlier,” said April Nowell, a Paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. “But what we see is that today’s teenagers are following a pattern that has hardly changed over thousands of years.”
Nowell noted that for archaeologists, studying teenagers and the process of puberty in ancient times is key to understanding the differences between individuals during puberty and the cultural significance that adolescence held in past societies, such as whether adolescents were treated differently by their communities.
