New research shows Ice Age teens from 25,000 years ago went through similar puberty stages as modern-day adolescents. In a study published today in the Journal of Human Evolution of the timing of puberty in Pleistocene teens, researchers are addressing a knowledge gap about how early humans grew up.

Life during prehistory was believed to be, as Thomas Hobbes described: “nasty, brutish and short.” However, this new study shows these teens were actually quite healthy. Most individuals in the study sample entered puberty by 13.5, reaching full adulthood between 17 and 22 years old. This indicates these Ice Age adolescents started puberty at a similar time to teens in modern, wealthy countries

An assessment of puberty status in adolescents from the European Upper Paleolithic

Highlights

  • Provides the first direct evidence for puberty in Upper Paleolithic adolescents.

  • Puberty began by 13.5 years in the Mid-Late Upper Paleolithic.

  • Puberty data enrich archaeological interpretations of individual adolescents.

  • This is the oldest application of peptide analysis for biological sex estimation.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004724842400085X?via%3Dihub