Surgical amputation of a limb 31,000 years ago in Borneo
- Journal:
- Nature
- Published:
- DOI:
- 10.1038/s41586-022-05160-8
- Affiliations:
- 12
- Authors:
- 16
Research Highlight
Amputation goes back 31,000 years
© Stevica Mrdja/EyeEm/Getty Images
The earliest known case of surgical amputation has been pushed back 24,000 years with the discovery of a skeleton having an amputated leg.
Medicine is generally considered to have advanced considerably about 10,000 years when settled agricultural communities started to emerge. In line with this view, is that, prior to the latest discovery, the earliest known case of amputation was 7,000 years ago.
But this view will need to be considered with the discovery by a team led by researchers from Griffith University in Australia of a 31,000-year-old skeleton in Borneo whose lower left leg appears to have been amputated.
The person was about 20 years old at time of death, but their lower leg was amputed about 6–9 years earlier, implying that the community must have offered considerable post-surgery care.
References
- Nature 609 547–551 (2022). doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05160-8