An Ancient Child’s Fossil Suggests Blue Eyes May Have First Appeared 17,000 Years Ago, Scientists Say

We already know that blue eyes are a genetic mutation that only happened recently compared to hundreds of thousands of years of human existence. It has been traced back to around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago in a person who lived in Europe. However, a new fossil found indicates that the first person to have blue eyes might have existed long before that estimated time.

A Remarkable Find in an Ice‑Age Cave

In southern Italy, around the cave called Grotta delle Mura, researchers found a fossil belonging to a child who lived about 17,000 years ago. After taking DNA from his remains, scientists found further evidence that ancient Europeans had a dark skin tone and possibly curly dark hair, but the unique discovery is that this child had blue eyes.

It was a shock to the researchers as they all knew that the estimate for the blue eyes’ existence was about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, but this fossil was a lot older than that. This tells us just how complex the story of how ancient European migration came to be.

Read more: Live Science

Oldest Known Case of Blue Eyes

How Did Blue Eyes Happen? The Evolutionary Story!

Now, this child that was found in a cave in Italy was the oldest known case of blue eyes in modern humans. His DNA confirmed that he has reduced melanin in the iris, which is what causes the blue eyes even in people today. It was a mutation in his genes, just like the other samples from much earlier fossil remains.

The era he lived in was called the Paleolithic Era, also called the Old Stone Age, a time when early humans were beginning to develop stone weapons. At this moment, they are still hunter-gatherers. Which means they live in small groups, where sometimes they mate with relatives, giving children some form of disease, such as what happened with this ancient child, as observed in his body and genes.

Signs of Hardship in a Young Life

The child’s remains revealed signs of congenital heart disease, such as thickened heart muscle, a condition that a person is born with. This is most probably because of his parents being close relatives; it is likely that they are cousins who gave birth to this genetic defect.

More DNA analysis showcases his teeth having periods of stress during his infancy, suggesting a harsh life even before he was born. Those are all expected during this time, as humans have not formed a proper civilization yet that could protect children like him.

Read more: IFL Science

What It Means for Human History

This showcases that some of our beliefs are wrong about when Europeans began to exhibit blue eyes. It might have been far earlier than we thought, which tells us just how much variability and diversity they already had at that time in their genes.

Blue eyes or the difference in eye colors of humans over time are a result of genetic variation in a large population group. Originally, they are from a number of mutated individual, who passed it down to their kids and their grandkids. However, it is important to clarify that we have evolved to have so much genetic variation that blue eyes and other eye colors have become a natural outcome.

17,000-year-old remains of blue-eyed baby boy unearthed in Italy

Author's Final Thoughts

The discovery of blue eyes in this 17,000-year-old child changes our understanding of when present human traits first arrived. The appearance of our ancestors might have been more varied than we thought. It is also a reminder of just how hard life was back in those days, but there is already so much resilience and diversity that led to the shared roots of modern humanity.

Read more: Scientists Say There Was No Evidence for a Great Flood — But Studies Suggest Something Wiped Out 99% of Humans 800,000 Years Ago

References & Further Reading

Higgins, O. A., et al. (2024). Life history and ancestry of the late Upper Palaeolithic infant from Grotta delle Mura, Italy. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-51150-x

Eiberg, H., et al. (2008). Blue eye color in humans may be caused by a perfectly associated founder mutation in a regulatory element located within the HERC2 gene inhibiting OCA2 expression. Human Genetics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00439-007-0460-x

Olalde, I., et al. (2014). Derived immune and ancestral pigmentation alleles in a 7,000-year-old Mesolithic European. PNAS. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4269527/

Jones, E. R., et al. (2015). Upper Palaeolithic genomes reveal deep roots of modern Eurasians. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9912

Günther, T., et al. (2018). Population genomics of Mesolithic Scandinavia: Investigating early postglacial migration routes and high-latitude adaptation. PLOS Biology. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2003703