X-Ray Studies of Two Million-Year-Old Fossil Reveal Earliest Known Cancer

The results of two studies carried out in South Africa, and in the UK, suggest that a hominid who lived between 1.6 million to 1.8 million years ago, had a potentially-fatal bone cancer.

While longer life spans, the use of pesticides, and other factors are causing an increase in the prevalence of cancer cases and tumor rates in modern society, the research shows that cancers and tumors also occurred in our ancestors living millions of years ago.


The results of the studies were published in the September 3, 2016, issue of ScienceNews. In the first study, the hominid, either a member of the Homo genus or from the genus Paranthropus suffered from a malignant and possibly fatal, fast-growing cancer on a bone. The researchers used advanced X-Ray techniques and 3D representations to identify the cancer on the fossil-bone remains of the hominid found at the South African Swartkrans Cave site. The cancer was located on the surface of the toe, and in the bone.

In the second study, researchers found a benign tumor in the fossilized bone of an Australopithecus sediba child, nearly 2 million years old from an underground cave at the Malapa site also in South Africa.

Coauthor of both studies, medical anthropologist, Edward Odes, from the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa), said, “Our studies show that cancers and tumors occurred in our ancient relatives millions of years before modern industrial societies existed.”

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University of the Witwatersrand