Yogyakarta –
A 31 thousand year old skeleton in East Kalimantan is claimed to be the oldest evidence of amputation in the world. Later this claim was refuted.
A number of Australian orthopedic surgeons and infectious disease specialists dispute the mystery of the 31 thousand year old skeleton which is claimed to be a scientific breakthrough regarding the history of human medical civilization.
Reporting from news.com.au, Tuesday (28/3/2023) in 2020 ago, the archaeologist found a skeleton with an age of 31 thousand years whose left leg was missing in a remote cave in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. The skeleton was found by an expedition team led by Australian and Indonesian archaeologists in Liang Tebo Cave, East Kalimantan.
According to a peer-reviewed study, the find is said to be the earliest known evidence of a medical operation in human history. Because the find is the oldest evidence of surgical amputation found. It even predates other inventions by tens of thousands of years of complicated procedures across Eurasia.
A researcher at Australia’s Griffith University, Dr Tim Maloney said it was proof of care. Therefore it can be said that the missing left leg was caused by an amputation, not an accident or an animal attack. The evidence has been published in the journal Nature.
But now that claim is being challenged. The team of doctors from Newcastle disputed the review in the journal Nature and called it a lack of knowledge about orthopedic practice. In addition, an accident surgeon at Jhon Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, Prof Zsolt Balogh concluded to the media that he had serious doubts about the previous findings.
Balogh said, “The ultimate conclusion of surgical amputation 31,000 years ago is impossible. There are many more plausible causes.”
Balogh also said that the most obvious cause is a simple open fracture, where the person hurts their foot against the soft tissue rather than the bone. Claims of amputation in this cave do not match the photos of the bones.
He stressed that the more important finding scientists should be concerned about was this person whose leg was injured. Here’s the proof ancient human able to take care of each other.
“Thirty-one thousand years ago, prehistoric humans had the ability to care for each other, to care for someone who had lost a limb,” he said.
*This article was written by Windi Yusnita, a participant in the Merdeka Campus Certified Internship Program at detikcom.
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