The operation, the oldest of this type ever described, allowed the private individual of his left foot to survive several years. It demonstrates a mastery of surgery and post-operative care.
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When does the history of surgery begin? On the island of Borneo, Indonesia, archaeologists discovered in 2020 the skeleton of an individual amputated from the bottom of his left leg. This individual would have lived almost 31,000 years ago and has survived several years after his operation. The details of this discovery have just been published In the journal Nature .
The excavations were not easy to lead: they took place in the Liang Tebo cave, located east of the Indonesian island, which is only accessible by canoe year, during the rainy season. “We knew that there were rock paintings in this area, but they had never been dated and we had no information on the people who had done these paintings, so we decided to carry out excavations” , explains Maxime Aubert, Canadian archaeologist, professor at the Griffith University (Queensland, Australia) and one of the authors of the study.
The team of archaeologists found well on the walls of rock paintings and excavated a burial containing a complete skeleton. Installed in a fetal position, the body was notably buried with a red ocher ball near the mouth, which binds it at the time of the paintings found, estimates the archaeologist.
amputated during his childhood
In the laboratory, radiocarbon analysis then made it possible to date this discovery between 30,000 and 31,000 years. “It is the oldest burial ever found in the Southeast Asia Islands, where it is very rare to find human skeletons dating from that age,” said Maxime Aubert. And it was not their surprise by discovering this “complete” skeleton to see that it lacked part of the left leg as well as its foot. More specifically, only the upper parts of the tibia and the left pendant were present and these were marked by a “very straight cut” as well as traces of “remodeling” on the bone, that is to say of a Bone reorganization following a lesion. In short, evidence of an amputation that the individual would have suffered during his life.
The analysis of the remaining bones by paleopathologists made it possible to learn more about its history. The individual would be a young adult amputated six to nine years before his death, during his childhood. Indeed, the bones of the amputated leg are much less developed than those of the right leg: small, thin and fragile bones of child, showing that the leg has stopped growing after the amputation.
In addition, no trace of post-operative infection was found on the bones. For Maxime Aubert, this observation, as well as survival over several years of the individual, demonstrate real surgical knowledge and care in the society of the time. “They must know that it was necessary, for the survival of the individual, to amputate the leg. And they also had to have many knowledge on human anatomy, for example to avoid a loss of blood, as well as on Medicinal plants, with anesthetic and antibacterial products. “A prowess as technical, achieved using cut stone tools.
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