Scientists from the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences discovered rickets in an ancient Scythian girl – she lived in the early Iron Age.
As reported on the website Godnauki.rf, scientists studied the mummified remains of a child (and it was originally believed that it was a boy) using microfocus radiography. The mummy was considered a boy because there was a bow and arrow and a knife next to the body.
However, DNA analysis and scans of the skull showed that this is a girl of about seven years old. She was from a tribe of pastoralists, did manual labor and got on a horse early.
In addition, according to the state of the mummy’s bones, scientists learned that shortly before her death, the girl was sick and starving. Signs of rickets were also found. This disease occurs due to a deficiency of vitamin D and is expressed in increased fragility and deformation of the bones. The girl ate mainly plant foods, without meat and milk. Most likely, nutritional deficiencies are not related to poverty, but can be explained by age or gender.
Source: Rosbalt
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