According to a paper published in the latest issue of the journal Nature, Australian researchers found the remains of a young individual in Borneo, Indonesia, whose left foot was surgically amputated 31,000 years ago. Surprisingly, the researchers believed that the person survived the operation and lived another 6 to 9 years, dying at the age of 19 or 20.
While amputation may be considered a fairly modern procedure, the latest research from researchers at Griffith University in Australia suggests that humans have been performing this procedure since the Stone Age.
The site of the excavation of the remains.
The team found the remains in a Liang Tebo limestone cave in East Kalimantan.
They believe the remains belonged to a young man whose lower third of his calf was surgically amputated, possibly in childhood.
While the cause of the amputation remains unclear, the researchers say it is unlikely to be the result of an animal attack or other accident, as they often result in comminuted fractures.
Skeletal analysis showed that the young man's left foot had been surgically removed.
The paper notes that early evidence of this unexpectedly successful amputation suggests that complex medical knowledge and skills were developed at least in some modern human foraging groups in tropical Asia long before the Neolithic agricultural transition.
The researchers said the operators "must have detailed knowledge of limb structure, muscles and blood vessels" to prevent fatal blood loss and infection.
The young man survived the operation and lived another 6 to 9 years, dying at the age of 19 or 20.
They say rapid rates of wound infection in the tropics may have spurred the development of new medicines, such as preservatives, which take advantage of the medicinal properties of Borneo's rich plant biodiversity.
Prior to this, the oldest known amputation occurred on a Neolithic farmer in France about 7,000 years ago, whose left forearm was surgically removed and then partially healed.
In Western societies, the researchers say, successful surgical amputation has only become a medical norm in the last 100 years. Prior to modern clinical developments, including antibiotics, it was widely believed that most people who underwent amputation would die, either from blood loss and shock during amputation, or from subsequent infections.
Text/Nandu reporter Chen Lin