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Skilled Surgery 31,000 Years Ago
A skeleton discovered in a cave in Indonesia has turned out to be evidence of the earliest known surgical amputation, pre-dating other discoveries of complex medical procedures across Eurasia by tens of thousands of years.
Prior to this discovery, Dr Tim Maloney, a research fellow at Australia’s Griffith University, said it had been widely accepted that amputation was a guaranteed death sentence until about 10,000 years ago, when surgical procedures advanced with the development of large settled agricultural societies.
He said the successful operation suggested some form of intensive care, including regular disinfection post-operation and this implies that early people had mastered complex surgical procedures. The nature of the healing, including the clean stump showed it was caused by amputation and not an accident or animal attack.
The patient survived not just as a child, but as an adult amputee in this rainforest environment and importantly, not only does the stump lack infection, but it also lacks distinctive crushing.
“This finding very much changes the known history of medical intervention and knowledge of humanity,” Maloney said….. "the stone age surgeon must have had detailed knowledge of anatomy, including veins, vessels and nerves, to avoid causing fatal blood loss and infection".
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How? My thinking on the potential presence of ancient aliens on Earth in the dim and distant past is rearing its head again. Any thoughts?
Prior to this discovery, Dr Tim Maloney, a research fellow at Australia’s Griffith University, said it had been widely accepted that amputation was a guaranteed death sentence until about 10,000 years ago, when surgical procedures advanced with the development of large settled agricultural societies.
He said the successful operation suggested some form of intensive care, including regular disinfection post-operation and this implies that early people had mastered complex surgical procedures. The nature of the healing, including the clean stump showed it was caused by amputation and not an accident or animal attack.
The patient survived not just as a child, but as an adult amputee in this rainforest environment and importantly, not only does the stump lack infection, but it also lacks distinctive crushing.
“This finding very much changes the known history of medical intervention and knowledge of humanity,” Maloney said….. "the stone age surgeon must have had detailed knowledge of anatomy, including veins, vessels and nerves, to avoid causing fatal blood loss and infection".
https:/
How? My thinking on the potential presence of ancient aliens on Earth in the dim and distant past is rearing its head again. Any thoughts?
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Jim, no one said //"they must have had outside help", ie aliens//, but yours is exactly the response I expected and exactly the response that I feel impedes research. The unsurprising thing is that no thought seems to have been given to the fundamental question which is 'How? ' This was a clean surgical operation. The foot wasn't hacked off, the bone wasn't smashed or crushed, but they managed to do it, presumably, using crude tools made from bone and stone and to successfully repair the result and control the blood loss. Anesthetics and antiseptics are another story - or rather another question.
And this isn't a one off - it's simply the oldest example found. You've mentioned trepanning and say you can't imagine that being anything other than extremely dangerous without proper equipment and sterilisation, a comment with which you have essentially stymied your own argument. The question therefore remains, 'How?'
And this isn't a one off - it's simply the oldest example found. You've mentioned trepanning and say you can't imagine that being anything other than extremely dangerous without proper equipment and sterilisation, a comment with which you have essentially stymied your own argument. The question therefore remains, 'How?'
// Jim... but yours is exactly the response I expected and exactly the response that I feel impedes research. //
There's nothing I said or wrote that can possibly be said to "impede research". This discovery opens up a whole host of interesting questions that would make for very fruitful lines of research, including doubtless many I can't think of. For example, you're right to wonder what tools they would have used -- a sharp flint would presumably do the job, and we know such people would have had access to such things, but maybe this would require a particularly large and sharp one. So this presumably motivates extra research into the scope and extent of Stone Age tools. And, at the very least, there's the c.20,000-year gap that this creates. Can we track surgical progress through that gap? It would potentially be a more or less limitless supply of discoveries. Needless to say, too, this discovery would surely imply even earlier attempts: can we find those? Maybe also the failed attempts?
And I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface.
As to your comments about trepanning, you seem to have misunderstood my point: ancient people were clearly capable of performing surgery that has a high risk factor. Sometimes, and probably often, people died from those procedures. Sometimes, however, they survived. There's nothing remarkable in this. The human body is quite resilient, and even in the absence of sterilisation can sometimes live through horrific injuries. How does it stymie any argument to say so? Here's an example of an amputee who survived: it's hardly much of a stretch to imagine that many others had limbs amputated, but subsequently died. Likewise, we have examples of people who, presumably, underwent trepanning and died shortly after, and people who underwent it and lived.
Maybe these explanations, or musings, are too mundane for your tastes. But never mind. The extraordinary is worth keeping in mind as a back-up, once you've exhausted the mundane.
There's nothing I said or wrote that can possibly be said to "impede research". This discovery opens up a whole host of interesting questions that would make for very fruitful lines of research, including doubtless many I can't think of. For example, you're right to wonder what tools they would have used -- a sharp flint would presumably do the job, and we know such people would have had access to such things, but maybe this would require a particularly large and sharp one. So this presumably motivates extra research into the scope and extent of Stone Age tools. And, at the very least, there's the c.20,000-year gap that this creates. Can we track surgical progress through that gap? It would potentially be a more or less limitless supply of discoveries. Needless to say, too, this discovery would surely imply even earlier attempts: can we find those? Maybe also the failed attempts?
And I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface.
As to your comments about trepanning, you seem to have misunderstood my point: ancient people were clearly capable of performing surgery that has a high risk factor. Sometimes, and probably often, people died from those procedures. Sometimes, however, they survived. There's nothing remarkable in this. The human body is quite resilient, and even in the absence of sterilisation can sometimes live through horrific injuries. How does it stymie any argument to say so? Here's an example of an amputee who survived: it's hardly much of a stretch to imagine that many others had limbs amputated, but subsequently died. Likewise, we have examples of people who, presumably, underwent trepanning and died shortly after, and people who underwent it and lived.
Maybe these explanations, or musings, are too mundane for your tastes. But never mind. The extraordinary is worth keeping in mind as a back-up, once you've exhausted the mundane.
Corby, //If only that one success were found…//
It isn't.
Jim, you say you //can't imagine that being anything other than extremely dangerous without proper equipment and sterilisation// … and neither can I. That's how you've stymied your own argument. You further say //The extraordinary is worth keeping in mind as a back-up, once you've exhausted the mundane.// but if you can't imagine how they did it without proper equipment and sterilisation you've already exhausted the mundane.
It isn't.
Jim, you say you //can't imagine that being anything other than extremely dangerous without proper equipment and sterilisation// … and neither can I. That's how you've stymied your own argument. You further say //The extraordinary is worth keeping in mind as a back-up, once you've exhausted the mundane.// but if you can't imagine how they did it without proper equipment and sterilisation you've already exhausted the mundane.
"Extremely dangerous" doesn't mean the same as "automatically fatal". There's the reason I've not stymied my argument, or any other. We *know* that trepanning worked, sometimes, and we have evidence equally to suggest that it didn't always work. It's therefore indeed "extremely dangerous", but it was on occasion successful.
I've not stymied anything.
I've not stymied anything.
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