Nazca infant had rare, fatal birth defect that left her with one central eye 1,600 years ago

Archaeologists in Peru have discovered the skeleton of an infant with a rare birth defect that left only one central eye socket in the child's skull. DNA analysis of the remains confirmed a chromosomal abnormality caused the deadly condition in the infant over 1,600 years ago, according to a new study.

"We cannot really say how long this individual survived," study co-author Lars Fehren-Schmitz, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told Live Science in an email. But "the burial of this infant suggests that the Nasca treated this individual in death like most other infants."

The skeleton of this female infant was discovered alongside a second one inside a ceramic urn at the archaeological site of Jauranga in Peru's Palpa Valley, where numerous geoglyphs known as the Nazca Lines have been found. Archaeologists uncovered several dozen other burials dated to the Middle Nazca (also spelled Nasca) period (A.D. 325 to 440) at the site, but one of the co-buried infants had an extremely rare condition, researchers wrot...