Stone Age Surgery Discovered After 7,000-Year-Old Man Found With Expertly-Amputated Arm
Evidence of surgery carried out nearly 7,000 year ago has emerged – suggesting our Stone Age ancestors were more medically advanced than first thought. Early Neolithic surgeons used a sharpened flint to amputate the left forearm of an elderly man, scientists have discovered. And, more remarkable yet, they ensured the patient was anaesthetised and the limb cut off cleanly while the wound was treated afterwards in sterile conditions. Scientists unearthed evidence of the surgery during work on tomb discovered at Buthiers-Boulancourt, about 40 miles south of Paris. It suggests an incredible degree of medical knowledge was available in 4900BC and the revelation could force a reassessment of the history of surgery. Researchers have also recently reported signs of two other Neolithic amputations in Germany and the Czech Republic.
It was known that Stone Age doctors performed trephinations, cutting through the skull, but not amputations. ‘The first European farmers were therefore capable of quite sophisticated surgical acts,’ said a spokesman for the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research. Cécile Buquet-Marcon and Anaick Samzun, both archaeologists, and Philippe Charlier, a forensic scientist, discovered the Neolithic surgery while researching the tomb of an elderly man. The man, who lived in the Linearbandkeramik period, when European hunter-gatherers settled down to agriculture, stock-breeding and pottery, was clearly important. His grave was
6.5ft long – bigger than most – and contained a schist axe, a flint
pick and the remains of a young animal, which are evidence of high
status. January 26, 2010 Copyright © 2010 Daily Mail
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