While Sly may have made The Family Stone a household name thanks to some dynamite funk music way back in the 1970’s, he certainly didn’t invent the concept of family. As it turns out, sharing intimate moments with your closest relatives and saddling them with unnecessary emotional baggage is older than Stonehenge.
Scientists in Central Germany recently uncovered a grave containing bones from four individuals that DNA tests revealed were that of a mother, father and their two children. This find is a remarkable one in that, according to Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide Australia, the genetic link between the study subjects provides scientists with their earliest evidence of the existence of the nuclear family structure in the Central European region. Unfortunately, it’s also the earliest evidence of a Central European family being brutally attacked, as several telling signs on their skeletal remnants pointed to being the victims of outside violence.
The astonishing find was most likely met by disappointment from the likes of Pauly Shore and Sean Astin who were hoping the Stone Age clan was impacted in ice and could be thawed out in time to revive their careers with an “Encino Man” sequel entitled “Encino Family”.
