Health and Diseases in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages

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NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE DISEASES

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Samir S. Patel wrote in Archaeology magazine: “Schistosomiasis, a disease caused by parasitic flatworms, today infects some 250 million people worldwide, causing severe pain, anemia, and even death. Recent analysis of human skeletal remains from Tell Zeidan in northern Syria has revealed that these parasites have plagued humankind for thousands of years — enabled by the same human innovations that made the area habitable for large numbers of people. Soil from a burial there, dating to more than 6,000 years ago, contained the remains of a schistosome egg, the oldest known evidence of the disease by 1,000 years. Humans can contract the disease by wading in freshwater, where the snails that host the parasites live. People at Tell Zeidan farmed wheat and barley, which would not have been possible in the arid region without irrigation systems. It is these freshwater systems that the researchers believe allowed schistosomiasis to spread. “This discovery might be among the oldest evidence of man-made technology inadvertently causing disease outbreaks,” says study coauthor Piers Mitchell of the University of Cambridge. [Source: Samir S. Patel, Archaeology magazine, September-October 2014]

According to Archaeology magazine: The bacterium that causes bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, has been responsible for some of the most devastating pandemics in history, including the Black Death, which killed more than half of Europe’s population in the fourteenth century. The first recorded outbreak was the sixth-century A.D. Justinian Plague, but researchers have now found evidence that a virulent form of the bacterium was circulating at least as early as 1800 B.C. [Source: Daniel Weiss, Archaeology magazine, January-February 2019]

“The team sequenced the genomes of Y. pestis recovered from two Bronze Age skeletons — one male and one female — buried together in southwestern Russia. They determined that the strain with which the pair was infected had developed mutations that allowed it to be carried by fleas. Researchers are unsure how earlier known strains of the bacterium were spread, but they are certain that fleas spread plague efficiently, allowing it to reach pandemic levels. “We know of a lot of historical outbreaks of disease for which the causes have not yet been identified,” says Maria Spyrou of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. “Now that we know that Y. pestis has been capable of causing epidemics in humans for the past 4,000 years, we have to start screening more material to determine whether it could have been involved.” The team hopes to find evidence of early plague outbreaks that have gone unrecorded.

Genetic Conditions with Ancient Roots

Researchers have discovered that lactose tolerance, the ability to digest the sugar in milk and other dairy products, emerged in Europe approximately 6,000 years ago. In addition, Eastern Europeans have a heightened genetic risk for Alzheimer's and type 2 diabetes.[Source: Will Dunham, Reuters, January 11, 2024]

In a study, published on January 11 , 2024 in the journal Communications Biology, researchers found sex-chromosome syndromes in DNA from six ancient skeletons unearthed in Britain. Researchers in the United Kingdom have discovered a way to identify genetic conditions in “In our study … we reconstruct the profiles of 6 individuals with aneuploidy (additional or missing chromosomes in their karyotype) from ancient Britain,” Kakia Anastasiadou, a researcher in the study, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Anastasiadou and her colleagues at the Francis Crick Institute in London examined the DNA from these ancient people and found the presence of four familiar conditions: Down syndrome, Turner syndrome, Jacob’s syndrome and Klinefelter syndrome. [Source: Julia Daye, Miami Herald, January 20, 2024]

Sex-chromosomal conditions occur when a person’s cells have either an extra or missing chromosome. When this happens, we often see characteristics like different behavior, delayed development or variations in appearance. Using a new computational method, the researchers said they were able to measure the number of chromosomes by counting the copies of X and Y chromosomes and comparing the resulting number to a predicted baseline.

With this method, the group identified the first prehistoric person with Turner syndrome (a female with only one X chromosome instead of two) from about 2,500 years ago, according to the study. They also identified the first person with Jacob’s syndrome (a male with an extra Y chromosome — XYY), a baby with Down syndrome (an extra chromosome) from the Iron Age and three people with Klinefelter syndrome (males with an extra X chromosome — XXY) from several different time periods, researchers said.

Spread of Disease in Neolithic Scandinavia — Sometimes by Kissing and Sex

Irene Wright wrote in the Miami Herald: Around 6,000 years ago, the people of Sweden and Norway became less nomadic and set down roots in agricultural communities. With this newfound stability, they suddenly faced the challenge of increasing population density and interacting with livestock — and the bacterial infections that come with both. In a study, published March 7, 2024 in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers analyzed the teeth of 38 Stone Age remains for the lingering DNA of deadly infections. They collected samples of teeth from 38 bodies discovered at 11 archaeological sites across Norway and Sweden, representing many different cultures at the time, according to the study. Some samples, from southern Norway, were about 9,500 years old, the researchers said in a news release, while others from Sweden were closer to 4,500 years old. Teeth, often the most well preserved part of human remains, give a unique look at the life of the person before their death, researchers said. [Source: Irene Wright, Miami Herald, March 14, 2024]

The researchers were on the hunt for microbial DNA, the pieces left behind after a bacteria lives in a body. Not all bacteria is bad. In fact, you can thank bacteria for healthy digestion and for keeping the environment inside your digestive tract in shape. Other bacteria can be deadly, and that’s exactly what the researchers found. The researchers found five different species of pathogenic bacteria, or bacteria that would have caused a disease, ones that are potentially life-threatening. First, the DNA of Y. pestis, the bacteria that causes the plague, was discovered in the teeth of an adult female from southern Sweden. Based on previous research, it’s the oldest case of the plague found in remains to date, the researchers said. They also found another related species, Y. enterocolitica, which causes a “potentially lethal” infection with symptoms like diarrhea and fever, according to the study. “The bacterium is typically spread from contaminated water and food, but there are also signs of some transmission between humans as well as (from animals to humans),” the study said.

While the plague may not be a modern problem, food poisoning is, and the researchers found DNA belonging to S. enterica, or salmonella. “In modern populations, S. enterica is typically transmitted to humans through ingestion of contaminated meat, eggs, or milk, though (animal) transmission is also possible,” the researchers said. “Interestingly, these two individuals were recovered from the same grave and this finding could thus imply the cause of death.” The researchers then found C. botulinum, which causes botulism and is found in decaying flesh, and C. tetani, a related bacteria that can also cause a lethal infection.

But two other infections stood out the most — meningitis and gonorrhea. N. meningitidis, which causes meningitis, is passed through saliva, researchers said. That means that while it can spread from a cough or sneeze, close proximity is necessary for the disease to spread from person to person, commonly from kissing. That’s also the case of N. gonorrhoeae, the bacteria that causes gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease.

Helena Malmström, a study author and researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden, says the presence of these bacteria show the cultural change that occurred when people became less nomadic and started living in larger communities at the end of the Stone Age, according to the release. The researchers said the shift from hunter-gatherer to farmer can be seen in the bacteria. As they moved into communities, they saw more infections from food and water, from interactions with livestock and interactions with each other. All of these infections are relatively easy to treat with modern medicine, the researchers said, but at the time, they were likely fatal.

9,500-Year-Old Chewing Gum Reveals Ancient Humans Suffered from ‘Notable’ Diseases

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In a study published January 18, 2024 in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from Stockholm University described their analysis of three 9,500-year-old pieces of chewed pitch — the Neolithic equivalent of chewing gum — found on the island of Orust, located on the western coast of Sweden and found that they revealed diverse diet and “notable” dental diseases. The ancient globs were found three decades ago alongside stone tools, according to a news release from Stockholm University.[Source: Brendan Rascius, Miami Herald, January 23, 2024]

Brendan Rascius wrote in the Miami Herald,: Through DNA analysis, they were linked to three teenage individuals, who were likely camping, hunting and fishing in the area. The DNA found on the pieces — the oldest known human genetic material in Scandinavia — indicate the group of hunter-gatherers had poor oral hygiene. “We reconstructed several ancient bacterial genomes and found notable amounts of oral pathogens,” researchers said. The bacteria Streptococcus, which can lead to dental cavities, was located on the chewed gum. An abundance of other bacteria, including Actinomyces and Treponema, were also found.

These results comport with what is known about the ancient populations in Sweden, researchers said. “The Mesolithic population density was low, with limited possibilities for pandemic-causing microbes to spread between humans, but not restricting the presence of bacteria from other sources than humans, like for example those causing systemic diseases including infective endocarditis,” researchers said. “The wider use of the teeth, as tools, likely increased the risk for collecting periodontitis causing oral microbes.”

In addition, traces of various plants and animals were observed on the chewed gum, indicating they had recently been consumed. DNA sequences from red fox, trout, red deer, apple and hazelnut were all observed, reflecting a diet composed of both terrestrial and marine life, researchers said. The results provide an “amazing” window into the lives of “a small group of hunter-gatherers on the Scandinavian west coast,” Anders Götherström, one of the study authors, said in the release.

Otzi's Health

Otzi the Iceman is the name given to a 5,300-year-old mummified body of a man that was found in a glacier near the border of Italy and Austria. He is the best-preserved prehistoric man ever discovered.

Otzi had brown hair and type-O blood. He was lactose intolerant (had problems digesting milk and dairy products), which was common among Neolithic agrarian societies. He had extensive tooth decay and worn teeth and his bones showed signs of a high degree a wear and tear. He also was the first-known carrier of Lyme disease, a bacterial infection spread by ticks, and had an ulcer-inducing bacteria. German mummy expert Albert Zink wrote in Science. But for all his parasites, worn ligaments and bad teeth, he was in “pretty good shape”.

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Analysis of the "Iceman" with X-rays, CT scans and chemical analysis of bone, tissue and DNA samples has shown that he had very little body fat (indicating he may have been close to starving); he had four broken ribs; and had arthritis in his hip joints, knees, ankles and spine. There were signs of arteriosclerosis and a possible stroke.

Radiologists are unable to determine whether the broken ribs occurred during his lifetime, were caused by the weight of the glacier which preserved him or were made during the recovery process after he was found but think they were probably the result of an injury that occurred in his lifetime. Dr. William A. Murphy, a radiologist from the University of Texas who studies thousands of X-Rays and CAT scan told the New York Times. "It's my opinion that it would take significant force to do that, and I can imagine that force from the weight of ice."

See Separate Articles: OTZI, THE ICEMAN'S HEALTH, DIET AND DISEASES europe.factsanddetails.com ; OTZI’S DEATH AND FINAL HOURS europe.factsanddetails.com

Debate Over the Existence of Cancer in Prehistoric Times

George Johnson wrote in the New York Times: “When they excavated a Scythian burial mound in the Russian region of Tuva about 10 years ago, archaeologists literally struck gold. Crouched on the floor of a dark inner chamber were two skeletons, a man and a woman, surrounded by royal garb from 27 centuries ago: headdresses and capes adorned with gold horses, panthers and other sacred beasts. But for paleopathologists — scholars of ancient disease — the richest treasure was the abundance of tumors that had riddled almost every bone of the man’s body. The diagnosis: the oldest known case of metastasizing prostate cancer. The prostate itself had disintegrated long ago. But malignant cells from the gland had migrated according to a familiar pattern and left identifiable scars. Proteins extracted from the bone tested positive for PSA, prostate specific antigen. [Source: George Johnson, New York Times, December 27, 2010 \^/]

“Often thought of as a modern disease, cancer has always been with us. Where scientists disagree is on how much it has been amplified by the sweet and bitter fruits of civilization. Over the decades archaeologists have made about 200 possible cancer sightings dating to prehistoric times. But considering the difficulties of extracting statistics from old bones, is that a little or a lot? A recent report by two Egyptologists in the journal Nature Reviews: Cancer reviewed the literature, concluding that there is “a striking rarity of malignancies” in ancient human remains.

“The rarity of cancer in antiquity suggests that such factors are limited to societies that are affected by modern lifestyle issues such as tobacco use and pollution resulting from industrialization,” wrote the authors, A. Rosalie David of the University of Manchester in England and Michael R. Zimmerman of Villanova University in Pennsylvania. Also on the list would be obesity, dietary habits, sexual and reproductive practices, and other factors often altered by civilization. \^/

“Across the Internet, news reports made the matter sound unequivocal: “Cancer Is a Man-Made Disease.” “Cure for Cancer: Live in Ancient Times.” But many medical experts and archaeologists were less impressed. “There is no reason to think that cancer is a new disease,” said Robert A. Weinberg, a cancer researcher at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., and the author of the textbook “The Biology of Cancer.” “In former times, it was less common because people were struck down in midlife by other things.” Another consideration, he said, is the revolution in medical technology: “We now diagnose many cancers — breast and prostate — that in former times would have remained undetected and been carried to the grave when the person died of other, unrelated causes.” \^/

“Even with all of that taken into account, there is a fundamental problem with estimating ancient cancer rates. Two hundred suspected cases may not sound like much. But sparsity of evidence is not evidence of sparsity. Tumors can remain hidden inside bones, and those that dig their way outward can cause the bone to crumble and disappear. For all the efforts of archaeologists, only a fraction of the human bone pile has been picked, with no way to know what lies hidden below. Anne L. Grauer, president of the Paleopathology Association and an anthropologist at Loyola University of Chicago, estimates that there are roughly 100,000 skeletons in the world’s osteological collections, and a vast majority have not been X-rayed or studied with more modern techniques. \^/

“According to an analysis by the Population Reference Bureau, the cumulative total of everyone who had lived and died by A.D. 1 was already approaching 50 billion, and had nearly doubled by 1750. (The analysis refutes the oft-made assertion that more people are alive today than have ever lived on earth.) If those figures hold, the number of skeletons in the archaeological database would represent barely one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of the total. Within that minuscule sample, not all of the remains are complete. “For a long time archaeologists only collected skulls,” said Heather J. H. Edgar, curator of human osteology at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. “For the most part, there’s no way to know what the rest of those people’s skeletons might have said about their health.” \^/

“So how are scientists to evaluate, for example, the significance of the handful of fossilized examples of osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer that mostly affects young people? (What may be the oldest case was found in 1932 by the anthropologist Louis Leakey in a prehistoric relative of man.) Today the incidence of osteosarcoma among people younger than 20 is about five cases per million per year. “You would need to screen 10,000 individuals to find a case,” said Mel Greaves, a professor of cell biology at the Institute of Cancer Research in England, and the author of “Cancer: The Evolutionary Legacy” (Oxford, 2000). Not enough teenage remains have been scrutinized, he said, to draw a meaningful conclusion. There is a further complication: more than 99 percent of cancers originate not in bone but in softer organs, which quickly decay. Unless they spread to bone, they will most likely go unrecorded.” \^/

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Multiple Sclerosis Increased in Europe 5,000 Years with the Arrival of Yamnaya Horsemen

Will Dunham of Reuters reported: DNA obtained from the bones and teeth of ancient Europeans who lived up to 34,000 years ago is providing insight into the origin of the often-disabling neurological disease multiple sclerosis, finding that genetic variants that now increase its risk once served to protect people from animal-borne diseases.The findings stemmed from research involving ancient DNA sequenced from 1,664 people from various sites across Western Europe and Asia. These ancient genomes were then compared with modern DNA from the UK Biobank, comprising about 410,000 self-identified "white-British" people, and more than 24,000 others born outside the United Kingdom, to discern changes over time. [Source: Will Dunham, Reuters, January 11, 2024]

One striking discovery related to MS, a chronic disease of the brain and spinal cord that is considered an autoimmune disorder in which the body mistakenly attacks itself. The researchers identified a pivotal migration event about 5,000 years ago at the start of the Bronze Age when livestock herders called the Yamnaya people moved into Western Europe from an area that includes modern Ukraine and southern Russia. They carried genetic traits that at the time were beneficial, protective against infections that could arise from their sheep and cattle. As sanitary conditions improved over the millennia, these same variants increased MS risk. This helps explain, the researchers said, why Northern Europeans have the world's highest MS prevalence, double that of Southern Europeans.

"We are a product of the evolution that happened in past environments, and in many ways we are not optimally adapted to the environment we have created for ourselves today," said University of California, Berkeley population geneticist Rasmus Nielsen, one of the leaders of the research published on in January 2024 in the journal Nature.

Around 11,000 years ago, farmers from the area of modern Turkey expanded into Western Europe, replacing hunter-gatherers. It was these agriculturalists who the Yamnaya later replaced. "The Yamnaya were Europe's first true nomads. They used domesticated cattle and horses to access the interiors of the Asian Steppe, where there is little to eat or drink, so carried everything with them on wagons. Physically they were unusually large, which we can see by measuring the skeletons and also genetically, and apparently fairly violent," University of Cambridge geneticist and study co-author William Barrie said.

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The findings underscore how genetic traits can change from beneficial to deleterious as conditions evolve. "Pathogenic infections increased in frequency during the Bronze Age, due to close proximity between people and their domestic animals, as well as rising population density," University of Copenhagen computational evolutionary biology specialist and research co-author Evan Irving-Pease said. "It was not until the modern era, with widespread sanitation and medical care, that these genetic variants became surplus to our immunological requirements, resulting in an increase in the risk of developing MS and other autoimmune diseases," Irving-Pease added.

The findings may carry implications for MS research and treatment. "This changes our view of MS, helping us understand its origins. We can see MS as the result of an immune system which has efficiently evolved to cope with a range of infections in the human past but which now exists in a very different environment. This difference between the past and modern sanitary environments likely causes the overactive immune system. This implies we should be aiming to recalibrate the immune system rather than suppress it," Barrie said.

Heart Disease in Ancient Times Gleaned by Examining Mummies from All Over

Daniel Weiss wrote in Archaeology magazine: The 1st-century A.D. mummy of Demetrios, now at the Brooklyn Museum, was excavated from the Roman cemetery in Hawara, Egypt, in 1911. CT scans revealed that he, like a surprising number of other mummies from around the world, had signs of atherosclerosis.Ötzi the Iceman hardly seems the type to have been prone to heart disease. He died violently around 3300 B.C., aged approximately 40 or 50, and his mummified body was found high in the Italian Alps in 1991. He led a vigorous life, ate a balanced diet, and had no access to tobacco. But when researchers put his remains in a CT scanner, they found calcium deposits in a number of his arteries, indicating the beginnings of atherosclerosis, which commonly leads to heart disease. “By the time Ötzi was 80, he would have had a very good chance of having a heart attack or a stroke,” says Gregory Thomas, a cardiologist at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center in California. [Source: Daniel Weiss, Archaeology magazine, November-December 2014]

“Recently, a multidisciplinary team of researchers, co-led by Thomas, examined CT scans of mummies from all over the world — from ancient Egyptians to pre-Columbian Peruvians to nineteenth-century Aleutian Islanders — and found widespread incidence of calcified arteries. They published their results in a series of papers in the journal Global Heart. One study, comparing scans of 76 ancient Egyptian mummies and 178 present-day Egyptians, found similar rates and severity of calcification after adjusting for age. These results are forcing experts to reconsider the long-held assumption that atherosclerosis is caused by uniquely modern habits: lack of physical activity, an unhealthy diet, and smoking. “We don’t know as much about the risk factors for atherosclerosis as we used to think we did,” says Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, who worked on several of the studies. “There may be other risk factors that have a bigger role than we appreciate.”

Ötzi the Iceman undergoing sampling for genetic testingÖtzi was saddled with a number of genetic factors that predisposed him to heart disease. According to a recent analysis of his genome, two anomalies in chromosomal region 9p21 nearly doubled his risk for coronary heart disease. “We didn’t expect that these genetic modifications would already have been present more than 5,000 years ago,” says Albert Zink, head of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Italy, adding that further studies will investigate whether mummies from other cultures had similar predispositions.

“In addition to genetic factors, the researchers are now considering aspects of premodern living that might have contributed to the findings. For example, Aleutian Islanders, hunter-gatherers who consumed a heart-healthy marine-based diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids, lived in subterranean homes filled with smoke from indoor fires. Three of five mummies scanned had atherosclerosis, and one woman who died around age 50 had coronary artery calcification as severe as that seen in coronary bypass patients, says Thompson. Chronic exposure to cooking-fire smoke may have been a factor.

Chronic infection and inflammation, which were far more common before modern antibiotics and standards of hygiene, probably played a role as well. Inflammation is known to contribute to plaque buildup in arteries, says Thomas, and people with chronic inflammatory conditions such as lupus commonly develop atherosclerosis early in life. Because infection was a leading killer of humans until very recently, people with strong immune systems — and therefore a strong inflammatory response — likely had a better chance at survival. But that same robust response, as it continues into adulthood, can contribute to clogged arteries.

“The finding of atherosclerosis in mummies from such a wide range of cultures and time periods makes it clear that the disease is not just a modern plague, but a hallmark of humanity. “No matter how much exercise we do, what food we eat, whether we take our medications,” says Thomas, “we are still at risk for atherosclerosis.”

Teeth Problems That Arose with Agriculture 12,000 Years Ago

Tooth decay occurs when bacteria consume trapped food and produce acid that breaks down hard dental tissue. These bacteria thrived when humans took up farming; ancient hunter-gatherers appear to have had few cavities. In 2015, University College Dublin reported: “Hunter-gatherers had almost no malocclusion and dental crowding, and the condition first became common among the world’s earliest farmers some 12,000 years ago in Southwest Asia, according to findings published today in the journal PLOS ONE. By analysing the lower jaws and teeth crown dimensions of 292 archaeological skeletons from the Levant, Anatolia and Europe, from between 28,000-6,000 years ago, an international team of scientists have discovered a clear separation between European hunter-gatherers, Near Eastern/Anatolian semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers and transitional farmers, and European farmers, based on the form and structure of their jawbones.” [Source: University College Dublin, February 5, 2015]

Professor Ron Pinhasi from the School of Archaeology and Earth Institute, University College Dublin, the lead author on the study, said: “Our analysis shows that the lower jaws of the world’s earliest farmers in the Levant, are not simply smaller versions of those of the predecessor hunter-gatherers, but that the lower jaw underwent a complex series of shape changes commensurate with the transition to agriculture,” “Our findings show that the hunter gatherer populations have an almost “perfect harmony” between their lower jaws and teeth,” he explains. “But this harmony begins to fade when you examine the lower jaws and teeth of the earliest farmers”.

“In the case of hunter-gatherers, the scientists from University College Dublin, Israel Antiquity Authority, and the State University of New York, Buffalo, found a correlation between inter-individual jawbones and dental distances, suggesting an almost “perfect” state of equilibrium between the two. While in the case of semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers and farming groups, they found no such correlation, suggesting that the harmony between the teeth and the jawbone was disrupted with the shift towards agricultural practices and sedentism in the region. This, the international team of scientists say, may be linked to the dietary changes among the different populations.

“The diet of the hunter-gatherer was based on “hard” foods like wild uncooked vegetables and meat, while the staple diet of the sedentary farmer is based on “soft” cooked or processed foods like cereals and legumes. With soft cooked foods there is less of a requirement for chewing which in turn lessens the size of the jaws but without a corresponding reduction in the dimensions of the teeth, there is no adequate space in the jaws and this often results in malocclusion and dental crowding. The link between chewing, diet, and related dental wear patterns is well known in the scientific literature. Today, malocclusion and dental crowding affects around one in five people in modern-world populations. The condition has been described as the “malady of civilization”“

The farming explanation for tooth decay doesn't always hold up. Hunter-gatherers who lived at Grotte Des Pigeons in Morocco 15,000 to 12,000 years ago before farming took hold had a lot of took decay. According to Archaeology magazine: New analysis of dentition shows that they had as many cavities as modern populations do. This could have been due to a diet heavy in acorns and other carbs that are appealing to the agents of tooth decay. Studies of people that lived at that time in Morocco do show they ate more plant-based food than meat. [Source: Samir S. Patel Archaeology magazine, May-June 2014]

Neolithic Surgery

An excavation of a 6,900-year-old tomb at Butheirs-Boulancourt, about 65 kilometers south of Paris, revealed a man with an amputated forearm. To perform such an operation would require a high degree of skill and knowledge about the human body an infection.

According to the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research, the patient seemed to haven been anaesthetized, the conditions were aseptic, the cut was clean and the wound was treated. Scientists believe that very sharp flint tools were used to do the cutting, which included cutting through bone, and plants such as sage may have been used to clean the wounds and as an anaesthetic.

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There is also evidence of Neolithic amputations being performed in Germany and the Czech Republic. It had been known for some time that Stone Age men performed trephinations, cutting holes in the skull, but these are the first evidence of amputations. The elderly amputee lived during the Linearbandkeramik period, when European hunter-gatherers began settling down to agriculture stockbreeding and pottery. A schist axe, a flint pick and other iams of a young animal, thought to be a sign of high status was found in the amputee’s grave.

According to Archaeology magazine: A hole in a 5,200-year-old cow skull is evidence of Neolithic bovine brain surgery. When the cranium was originally found at Champ-Durand, France, it was thought that the hole was caused by another cow’s horns, but reanalysis confirmed that the aperture’s characteristics are more consistent with trepanation. Experts believe that perhaps the world’s first known veterinarian attempted to save the cow’s life through surgery, or that Neolithic surgeons honed their skills on domestic animals before applying them to human subjects. [Source: Archaeology magazine, July- August 2018]

See Separate Article: SURGERY IN ANTIQUITY factsanddetails.com

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, Otzi Museum, oldest door from the BBC

Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Ancient Foods ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated May 2024

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