STONE AGE AMPUTEE PROVES NEOLITHIC MEDICS MORE ADVANCED THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT

by Theresa , Thursday, January 28, 2010, 04:59

Stone Age amputee proves Neolithic medics more advanced than previously thought
Stone Age medicine was far more advanced than previously thought, scientists discovered, after unearthing the 7,000-year-old skeleton of a man with an amputated arm.

Early Neolithic surgeons used a sharpened flint stone and rudimentary anaesthetics to amputate the elderly man’s left forearm, and treated the wound in sterile conditions, experts believe.

Evidence of the early surgery was unearthed by Cécile Buquet-Marcon and Anaick Samzun, both archaeologists, and Philippe Charlier, a forensic scientist, during work on a tomb discovered at Buthiers-Boulancourt, about 40 miles south of Paris.

The man, who lived in the Linearbandkeramik period, when European hunter-gatherers began subsistence farming, was found to be missing his forearm and hand bones.

Tests showed that the humerus bone had been severed above the elbow in what scientists described as “an intentional and successful amputation”.

The patient, who is likely to have been a warrior, is thought likely to have damaged his arm in a fall, animal attack or battle.

Pain-killing plants such as the hallucinogenic Datura are likely to have been used in the operation, and the wound was probably cleaned using antiseptic herbs like sage, the scientists said.

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