Stone Age amputee proves Neolithic medics

[Still Waters]

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”.

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[Paracelse]

Knowing that a flint scalpel is more precise that the new stuff coming out now, I wonder if they were not better surgeons?

[ShadowSot]

Knowing that a flint scalpel is more precise that the new stuff coming out now, I wonder if they were not better surgeons?

Don't see in the article where it says the stone blade was more precise.

[Abramelin]

Don't see in the article where it says the stone blade was more precise.

I think Paracelse meant that flint is more sharp than surgical steel.

And that's because it is.