Bones found in Ireland show that humans have taken care of each other since ancient times. The bones, buried 5,500 years ago, belonged to a child with Down Syndrome. The baby lived to be about 6 months old and was breastfed. When it died, it was buried in a monumental tomb with other adults and children.
In 2007, at an archaeological site in Vietnam, the bones of a man with a crippling disease were uncovered in a Stone Age grave. His bones indicate that he had a painful condition that would have left him paralyzed for the last several years of his life. Clearly, he was carried by others and given food and other resources that were always scarce in those days.
Archaeologist Lorna Tilley has collected evidence from as far back as 45,000 years ago that disabled people were as valued as the rest of the community. She accepts these relationships as the fundamental reality of human behavior, rather than rare, atypical incidents. Humans are innately compassionate. The principle of the "survival of the fittest" is untrue—we have carried the unfit with us since the dawn of humanity.
- Down Syndrome: a genetic disorder usually associated with physical growth delays, mild to moderate intellectual disability, and characteristic facial features.
- Monumental tomb: a grand, group burial site. Most that have been found so far date to about 4,000 years ago.
- Stone Age: a period that lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, when humans used stone and organic materials (wood, bone) to make tools and weapons. It ended between 4,000 BCE and 2,000 BCE with the advent of metalworking.