Australian researchers have made a ground-breaking discovery that indicates complex surgeries have been performed since the Stone Age.
The Griffith University team has discovered that ancient hunter-gatherers were performing successful surgical procedures, which were previously thought to have only become common in this century, more than 30,000 years ago.
The discovery centers on the skeletal remains of a 31,000-year-old hunter in Indonesia.
The remains, discovered on the island of Borneo in 2020, are believed to be the oldest known evidence of a successful amputation, predating successful surgery by at least 24,000 years.
Griffith University archaeologist Tim Maloney explained why the discovery was so significant.
“It speaks to the extraordinary intelligence and adaptability of the human species that people living in the rainforests of Borneo 31,000 years ago could undertake and survive such a complicated procedure,” he said.
Buried in the center of a cathedral-like chamber in Liang Tebo Cave, the individual had his lower leg and foot amputated as a teenager and went on to live another six to nine years, Dr Maloney said.
The researchers dated the skeletal remains by measuring the amount of radiation tooth enamel absorbed during burial.
Before the discovery, the oldest known successful surgery was obtained from the 7,000-year-old skeletal remains of a Frenchman who had his left forearm removed.
“Amputation rates were guaranteed to be fatal before the First World War,” Dr Maloney said.
Although the method of amputation in Liang Tebo’s case was not preserved, Dr. Maloney believed that the operator had an advanced understanding of the complications.
“There is a reasonable case to support the existence of an understanding of blood loss and shock control and some form of antiseptic or antimicrobial management.”
Dr. Maloney said that a sharpened stone scalpel-like instrument was the most likely tool used to perform the surgery.
“These people weren’t producing simple, immutable, lithic (stone) technology. There’s a lot of complex technology tweaked into flakes,” he said.
Despite living among dangerous predators, Dr. Maloney confidently ruled out animal attacks or other injuries crushing the bone, as there were no signs of infection.
“It’s very clean and oblique and you can really see the surface and the shape of the incision through the bone,” he said.
The discovery challenges the understanding that successful surgical practices arose in the last 10,000 years with the emergence of agricultural communities.