Humans have been practicing medical amputations much longer than we thought, as indicate now new research published this week in the magazine Nature. A group of scientists say they found a skeleton in Borneo 31.000 years old of a young man who apparently had amputated the left foot for reasons of health. Surprisingly, the man recovered from the amputation and probably lived many More yearssuggesting that their community possessed advanced medical knowledge.
It is discovery was made by a team of Indonesian and Australian archaeologists in 2020. They found the skeleton in the remote mountainous areas of the cave caliza Liang Tebo, in East Kalimantan, an Indonesian province of the island of Borneo. to skeleton cThe lower third of his left leg was clearly missing, but the team was surprised to see bony growths there, indicating that the leg had healed of reason of the amputation. The tests carried out indicated that the man lived about 31,000 years.
Scientists soon ruled out the possibility that the foot had been lost due to a accidents or animal attack, since those events would likely have caused some marks easily distinguishable. Also they argue that it had not disappeared either a form of punishment, because the man’s body had been treated with respect after the operation and in his back burial. Everything points to the amputation was done to save or improve human life. And if so, would it become the oldest known medical amputation in humans and with dozens of thousands of years of difference from the previous case that we had known. The oldest example above came from a old man stone age farmer al who had his left forearm amputated in France 7,000 years ago.
It is discovery suggests many things about the hunter-gatherer society in which this man, say the authors. The amputation probably occurred during his childhood and had to be performed with care, as the subject did not bleed to death during the operation.. Since modern surgeries use antiseptics and antibiotics to prevent infections, it is possible that this group identified its natural precursors between the rich plant diversity of Borneo, perhaps in response to infections common to That they would have faced in this zone of rain forest. Lastly, given is and difficult terrain to traverse and that the man probably lived another six or nine years before he died, it is likely that the people around you will worry for him and help him adapt to your particular needs. On top of all this happened some 20,000 years before humans created permanent settlements regularly.
“This is an argument really solid that this person and his community had developed advanced medical knowledge as to be able to successfully amputate the lower part of the left leg of a child and allow him to not only survive the operationbut also live a prosperous life in your environment”, he said in a statement study author Tim Maloney, an archaeologist at Griffith University.
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Ahora, el equipo espera poder investigar si la habilidad de amputación de este grupo era algo exclusivo de las personas de esta parte del sudeste asiático o un ejemplo de conocimiento médico complejo que estaba más extendido entre los humanos de esa época.