STONE AGE SURGERY was CRAZY

31,000 years ago, in a cave in Borneo, someone cut off a child's leg with stone tools… and the child survived. No doctors. No hospitals. No painkillers. So how did ancient humans deal with broken bones, rotten teeth, infections and childbirth? In this video we look at the real evidence: chimps and orangutans that treat themselves with plants, Neanderthals chewing natural aspirin and mold, Ötzi the Iceman's medicine kit and healing tattoos, Stone Age dentists with flint drills and tar fillings, antibiotic beer in ancient Nubia, the first real doctors of Egypt, nose reconstruction in ancient India — and some truly disgusting remedies. ⏱ Chapters 0:00 A 31,000-year-old amputation 1:15 How dangerous was the ancient world? 2:23 Animal doctors 3:43 Neanderthal medicine 5:39 Ötzi's first aid kit 7:14 The oldest toothpick 8:03 Broken bones 9:07 Stone Age dentists 10:39 Surgery with stone knives 12:22 Infection: the invisible killer 13:58 Who was the doctor? 15:03 Birth: the most dangerous day 16:24 Pain 17:29 Egypt: the first real doctors 20:00 India: the first nose jobs 21:11 The gross side of ancient medicine 22:11 So how did they survive? 📚 Sources Maloney et al. (2022). Surgical amputation of a limb 31,000 years ago in Borneo. Nature. Huffman, M. A. (2001). Self-medicative behavior in the African great apes. BioScience. Laumer et al. (2024). Active self-treatment of a facial wound with a biologically active plant by a male Sumatran orangutan. Scientific Reports. Weyrich et al. (2017). Neanderthal behaviour, diet, and disease inferred from ancient DNA in dental calculus. Nature. Hardy et al. (2012). Neanderthal medics? Evidence for food, cooking, and medicinal plants entrapped in dental calculus. Naturwissenschaften. Sommer, J. D. (1999). The Shanidar IV 'Flower Burial': a re-evaluation of Neanderthal burial ritual. Cambridge Archaeological Journal. Peintner et al. (1998). The Iceman's fungi. Mycological Research. Samadelli et al. (2015). Complete mapping of the tattoos of the 5300-year-old Tyrolean Iceman. Journal of Cultural Heritage. Frayer et al. (2017). Neanderthal toothpicking. Bulletin of the International Association for Paleodontology. Oxilia et al. (2015). Earliest evidence of dental caries manipulation in the Late Upper Palaeolithic. Scientific Reports. Oxilia et al. (2017). The dawn of dentistry in the late Upper Paleolithic. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Coppa et al. (2006). Early Neolithic tradition of dentistry. Nature. Bernardini et al. (2012). Beeswax as dental filling on a Neolithic human tooth. PLoS ONE. Buquet-Marcon et al. (2007). A possible Early Neolithic amputation at Buthiers-Boulancourt (France). Antiquity. Bassett et al. (1980); Nelson et al. (2010). Tetracycline-labeled bone from ancient Sudanese Nubia. Science / American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Gurven & Kaplan (2007). Longevity among hunter-gatherers. Population and Development Review. Wegner, J. (2002). A decorated birth-brick from South Abydos. Egyptian Archaeology. Kwiecinski, J. (2019). Merit Ptah, "the first woman physician". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. The Edwin Smith Papyrus; the Ebers Papyrus; Herodotus, Histories (Book II). The Sushruta Samhita. Some details (like exactly why the Neanderthal ate mold, or how old the Sushruta Samhita is) are still debated — we mention that in the video. #history #ancienthistory #prehistory