Stone Age Humans Had Advanced Medical Knowledge, Study Says

Buried in a shallow grave inside a remote Indonesian cave, archaeologists have found the bones of a young man they say could rewrite the history of medicine.

Using radiocarbon dating techniques, scientists estimate the body remained untouched for 31,000 years inside Liang Tebo Cave in Borneo’s eastern Kalimantan province, according to research published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

But the most striking aspect of the finding was that the young man was missing his lower left leg, with signs that it had been carefully amputated when the person was a preteen or teenager before his death from unknown causes between the ages of 19 and 21. , the researchers said.

The remarkably intact skeleton was found in 2020 by Australian and Indonesian archaeologists, who say the amputation reveals considerable surgical skill and is the oldest example in the archaeological record, shaking our understanding of the sophistication of Stone Age humans.

“It’s significant because it considerably detracts from our species’ knowledge of surgery and complex medicine,” Maxime Aubert, a professor at the Center for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University in Queensland, said in an email.

“They needed to have a deep understanding of human anatomy, such as stopping blood flow, anesthesia and antisepsis. All of this has only become the norm very recently,” Aubert wrote.

Experts thought that humans lacked the experience to perform difficult procedures like amputation until the rise of agriculture and permanent settlement transformed human society over the last 10,000 years.

Prior to this discovery, the oldest known amputee was an elderly farmer whose left forearm had been removed just above the elbow 7,000 years ago in what is now France, the study noted.

It was only 100 years ago that surgical amputation became a Western medical norm. Before developments like antibiotics, the study found, most people would have died at the time of amputation.

“Blood loss, shock and subsequent infection were the main sources of fatal amputation until relatively recently in human history,” said Tim Maloney, a researcher at Griffith University and one of the study’s co-authors.

community care

The individual had his left leg amputated as a child and survived for six to nine years after the surgery, according to the research.

There were no traces of infection in the bones, and new bone growth had formed over the amputated area—something that takes considerable time. Also, while the rest of the skeleton was the size of an adult, the amputated bones stopped growing and maintained their childhood size.

The surgeon or surgeons who performed the operation 31,000 years ago, likely with knives and scalpels made of stone, must have detailed knowledge of anatomy and muscular and vascular systems to expose and negotiate the veins, vessels and nerves and prevent fatal loss of blood. blood and infection, the study said.

After the amputation, intensive nursing and care would have been vital, and the wound would have had to be cleaned and disinfected regularly.

“I think the amazing thing is that this is real, direct, tangible archaeological evidence of a really high degree of community care,” Maloney said.

To live for years with an amputated leg in mountainous terrain, the individual would need a lot of help and ongoing care from their community.

“That this teenager survived the procedure and is estimated to have lived many years later is surprising,” said Charlotte Roberts, professor emeritus in the Department of Archeology at the University of Durham in the UK, in a commentary published alongside the study. She did not participate in the research.

Roberts agreed with the assessment that the limb was deliberately removed – an accidental injury would not show a clean slanted cut. Nor was the foot likely to be cut off as punishment, as the individual lived for years after the amputation and was buried with care and consideration, said Roberts, who studied nursing before becoming an archaeologist.

The Australian team said it was possible these hunter-gatherers had knowledge of medicinal plants, such as antiseptics, that would have grown in the Borneo rainforest.

Exciting region for discoveries

The teenager’s remains have been dated in two ways: radiocarbon dating of coal remains in the sediment layers above, below and below the skeleton; and a dated tooth measuring the radioactive decay of uranium isotopes, chemical elements found in tooth enamel.

It is also the oldest known deliberate burial on the islands of Southeast Asia, with limestone markers placed on top of the burial, the body placed in a flexed fetal position, and a large ball of ocher — a mineral pigment used in Stone Age rock art.

The skeleton was discovered in a region that has become an exciting site for paleoanthropology: Liang Tebo, a large limestone cave with human-hand stencils on the walls, located in a remote mountain landscape accessible only by boat at certain times of the year.

The world’s oldest figurative rock art has been found in caves elsewhere in Indonesia, and extinct human species such as Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis have been found on islands in the same region.

“It is from this area that humans set out by boat to cross the island from South Asia to reach the mainland of Papua and Australia (the first successful major sea voyage),” Aubert said by email. “They were advanced artists, and we now know that (they) had advanced medical knowledge.”

“In Liang Tebo, we found this 31,000-year-old prehistoric amputee less than a meter from the surface and we know we still have another 3-4 meters of sediment to dig up before the bedrock,” he added.

The 2020 excavation was halted by the alarm over the spread of Covid-19, and Australia’s archaeologists rushed home to avoid border closures that would last more than two years.

“We cannot want to go back. Maybe we will find more human remains and maybe remains of unknown species.”