It is not known exactly when medicine appeared, but it was millennia ago. Until now, researchers thought that many techniques dated back to the beginning of sedentary life, less than 10,000 years ago. But a recent study calls this hypothesis into question: the very first successful amputation would be 31,000 years old!
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[EN VIDÉO] The last orangutans of Borneo filmed in their natural habitat! Threatened by the loss of its habitat, the Bornean orangutan, endemic to this island, is endangered. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) works daily to safeguard and protect it through various projects. During this video, it is possible to see the species evolve in the last bastions of its natural environment.
In 2010, a skeleton almost 7,000 years old was found near Buthiers-Boulancourt, France. With one of his forearms missing, researchers concluded that he was the earliest evidence of a amputation successful. A hypothesis supported by the history of this period, which corresponds to the beginnings of sedentary agricultural societies. Many health problems would have appeared at this time, marking an evolution of medicine.
But the discovery of a skeleton on theBorneo island in Indonesia, detailed in a study by Nature, brings certain medical practices far back into the past! Almost 24,000 years ago: this last gate the marks of an amputation at the level of the ankle left, and has been dated around 31,000 years ago! “It rewrites our understanding of the development of this medical knowledge”said Tim Maloney, first author of the study and researcher at Australia’s Griffith University.
The date of the first successful amputation goes back 24,000 years
According to the study, the human who died around the age of 20 would have been amputated more than 6 years before his death, which implies that his injury was treated with sufficient care after the death.amputation so that it heals properly. “It’s very sharp and oblique, you can actually see the surface and shape of the incision through the bone”, said Tim Maloney. Whereas until today such medical practices were associated withHolocenethis new finding suggests that “aAt least some modern hunter-gatherer human groups in tropical Asia had developed sophisticated medical knowledge and skills long before the Neolithic agricultural transition,” explain the researchers in the study.
According to them, these early advances in medicine in Southeast Asia could be due to the particularity of the island Borneo! the tropical climate who ruled would have promoted rapid wound infections, prompting local peoples to rapidly develop various remedies” which exploit the medicinal properties of the rich biodiversity vegetable and endemic flora from Borneo concludes their study.
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