Surfing might have been around much longer than we thought

A recent study made by a team of scientists from the US and France,  studied the skulls from 77 of Neanderthals and found that almost half of them had Surfer’s Ear! The Neanderthals, or Homo Neanderthalensis is an extinct close relative to Homo Sapiens (humans), that lived in Europe and Asia 400 000 to 40 000 years ago. 

The scientists found that our ancient cousins had a much higher frequency of bone growth than us modern humans today. They can’t tell for sure why, but most likely they spent more time hunting in or by the water. Or maybe surfing has been around much longer than we thought? 

Ancient exostosis. (Credit: Trinkaus et al./PLoS One)

Update: This surprising news has also been brought to attention by beachgrit.com. Read their take here.