Behind the great technological and social transformations of the NeolithicNeolithicThe "New Stone Age": a period marked by farming, herding, settlement and pottery, from around 10,000 BC.→ -- agricultureAgricultureThe cultivation of plants and production of food by working the soil, which emerged in the Neolithic in the Near East and independently elsewhere; it radically transformed human societies.→, animal husbandry, permanent villages -- lie darker biological realities. The first sedentary communities of Europe had acquired, within a few generations, a new vulnerability to infectious disease, fostered by human and animal proximity, reduced dietary diversity, and grain storage that attracted pathogen-bearing rodents. The collective ossuary of Camino del Molino, in Caravaca de la Cruz in the Murcia region of Spain, stands as one of the most poignant testimonies to this silent health crisis. A 2026 study published in the International Journal of Paleopathology1 reveals that 91.7% of children buried at this site showed bone lesions associated with infectious disease or malnutrition.
An exceptional Neolithic collective ossuary
The Camino del Molino site was discovered in the 2000s during road construction. Emergency and then systematic excavations uncovered a collective funerary structure containing the remains of more than 1,300 individuals, deposited over a period estimated between 3200 and 2700 BCE. This mass of deceased -- men, women and children of all ages -- makes it one of the most important Neolithic ossuaries in the Iberian Peninsula.
The skeletal remains were deposited in a disorganised fashion, likely reflecting the prolonged use of the funerary site by one or more local communities. The absence of individualised grave goods suggests a collective and egalitarian funerary practice consistent with Neolithic societies of low social differentiation typical of southeastern Spain during this period.
The paleopathological study conducted by a team from the University of Murcia focused on all identifiable non-adult remains (individuals from birth to approximately 17 years) in the collection. Two hundred and forty-two non-adult individuals were identified, a substantial proportion of them infants and young children.
Multiple, convergent lesions
Researchers examined four main types of bone lesions indicative of physiological stress: periostitis (inflammation of the bone membrane), porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia on cranial flat bones, dental enamel hypoplasias, and lesions specific to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis or treponematoses.
The results are eloquent: 91.7% of non-adults whose preservation permitted observation displayed at least one of these lesions. Cribra orbitalia -- a classic indicator of anaemia and nutritional stress -- was the most frequent, present in over 80% of observable individuals. Periostitis, a sign of chronic bacterial infection, affected nearly 60% of cases. Enamel hypoplasias, which record episodes of metabolic stress during tooth formation (generally between 0 and 7 years), appeared in more than one child in two.
The prevalence and combination of these pathological signs have no equivalent in comparable Neolithic collections from the Iberian Peninsula. Researchers interpret the pattern as reflecting a persistent health crisis driven by overcrowding in settlements, water contamination, close contact with domestic animals (cattle, caprines, pigs), and a cereal-based diet of low nutritional diversity.
The Neolithic transition and the burden of infectious disease
The Camino del Molino study illustrates a well-known paradox in paleopathology: the "disease of progress." The Neolithic revolutionNeolithic revolutionThe shift from hunter-gatherer societies to farming and settled life (c. 10,000 BCE in the Near East), giving rise to villages and then cities.→, which enabled regular food production and the development of denser societies, simultaneously created ideal conditions for the spread of infectious diseases. SedentismSedentismThe shift from a nomadic life to lasting settlement in one place, a precondition for the rise of villages.→ concentrates human and animal waste, favouring bacteria and parasites. Close contact with livestock facilitated the transmission of zoonotic pathogens (brucella, mycobacterium bovis, leptospira) to human populations.
Children, whose immune systems are still maturing, were the most vulnerable to these new pathogenic pressures. Infant mortality in Neolithic European societies was generally high, but the Camino del Molino figures are particularly striking. A rate of 91.7% does not necessarily mean all these children died of the identified condition -- bone lesions can reflect chronic diseases from which recovery was possible. However, the over-representation of non-adults in the overall collection (they account for nearly 18% of those interred, despite likely higher demographic potential) suggests genuinely elevated infant mortality.
Isotopic analyses currently underway on some Camino del Molino individuals aim to clarify the diet of these children and determine whether differences exist between pathological individuals and those showing no lesions. Such data may reveal social or family sub-groups with differential access to food resources and care.
A window on prehistoric public health
Beyond its specific interest, the Camino del Molino study contributes to a broader picture of Neolithic population health in western Europe. Contemporary sites in France (Fontbregoua), Germany (Halberstadt, Talheim) and England (Haddenham) also attest to high infant mortality and signs of health stress. This overall picture suggests that the European Neolithic was, for children, a particularly difficult era.
Comparisons with MesolithicMesolithicThe period between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic (c. 10,000–6,000 BC in Europe), still based on hunting and gathering.→ hunter-gatherer populations are illuminating. Paleopathological studies on European Mesolithic sites generally show much lower rates of infectious lesions, even if bone preservation is often poorer and sample sizes smaller. The dietary diversity of hunter-gatherersHunter-gatherersA way of life based on hunting, fishing and gathering wild resources, without farming or herding; it dominated almost the whole of human history.→ -- a variety of animals, fruits, berries, roots -- appears to have conferred relative immunological resilience that Neolithic cereal-based diets could not guarantee.
Understanding these prehistoric health dynamics is far from purely academic. It illuminates very contemporary questions: how do rapid changes in dietary practices and lifestyles affect population health? What are the health consequences of urbanisation and sedentarisation? Camino del Molino offers, across 5,000 years, a striking mirror on the health risks of major demographic transitions.
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