How did ancient humans actually deal with pain?

How did ancient humans deal with pain, with no doctor and no pills? Most people picture Stone Age cavemen who gritted their teeth and suffered alone. The finds don't fit that picture. At El Sidrón in Spain, a Neanderthal with a tooth abscess had poplar and a mould in his plaque, and none of the others did. Ötzi the Iceman had tattoo lines right where his joints and spine had worn out. In ancient Egypt, a tomb wall shows a man's foot being rubbed, and in one study at Saqqara nearly nine in ten broken limb bones had healed well. At Shanidar Cave, a Neanderthal with a withered arm and a bad leg lived for years after his injuries. Then the story comes to your kitchen drawer: how the poppy and the willow led to morphine and aspirin, and why researchers now test magic mushrooms on pain. 0:00 A man with a bad leg 1:15 Bitter plants in a sick mouth 3:22 Marks where it hurt 5:11 Fed by other hands 7:11 From poppy to pill 9:20 What no drawer can hold Every study behind this video is listed below. 📚 RESEARCH & SOURCES: ▸ The plaque at El Sidrón: "Reconstructing Neandertal behavior, diet, and disease using ancient DNA" by Weyrich et al. (2017, Nature) : about 49,000 years; poplar and Penicillium in one young man only. ▸ Yarrow and chamomile: "Neanderthal medics?" by Hardy et al. (2012, Naturwissenschaften) ▸ The poppy at a lake village in Italy: "Direct dating reveals the early history of opium poppy in western Europe" by Antoine et al. (2020, Scientific Reports) : about 7,600 years. ▸ The morphine trace in a bone from the Gavà mines, as reported by a 2023 PLOS ONE study of Neolithic poppy : about 5,500 years. ▸ Ötzi's marks, as reported by Eurac Research, "Ötzi's ink", and by ScienceDaily (2015) on Samadelli et al. (Journal of Cultural Heritage) : about 5,300 years. ▸ Care for Ötzi: "Possible evidence for care and treatment in the Tyrolean Iceman" by Zink et al. (2019) ▸ Egyptian massage and fracture care, as reported by Rampil, "Pain relief in ancient Egypt", parts 1 and 2 (2026, The Past) : the Saqqara foot relief, "Do not let it be painful". ▸ The wrapped forearms, as reported by the review "Orthopedic surgery in ancient Egypt" (Acta Orthopaedica), citing Elliot Smith (1908, BMJ) ▸ The Edwin Smith Papyrus, case 36, as quoted in a medical-history article in PubMed Central : pull, bandage, alum and honey. ▸ Healed bones at Saqqara, as reported by summaries of Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin (2013, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library) : about 88 percent. ▸ Shanidar: "Calculated or caring? Neanderthal healthcare in social context" by Spikins et al. (2018, World Archaeology), citing Solecki (1971) : about 50,000 years. ▸ The Shanidar date: "New Neanderthal remains associated with the flower burial at Shanidar Cave" by Pomeroy et al. (2020, Antiquity) ▸ Man Bac: "Survival against the odds" by Tilley, Oxenham (2011) : about 4,000 years; ten years of care. ▸ Morphine: Klockgether-Radke (2002), and Brook et al. (2017) : isolated in the early 1800s; still made from poppies. ▸ Morphine from poppies today: "Narcotic Drugs 2025" by the INCB (2025) ▸ Willow to aspirin, as reported by a history review in PubMed Central and by the Science Museum, "Bayer works wonders: the invention of aspirin" : 1897. ▸ Psilocybin and cluster headache by Schindler et al. (2022, Headache) ▸ Psilocybin and phantom limb pain, a pilot trial (2026, The Journal of Pain) ▸ Psilocybin and fibromyalgia, an open-label study (2025, Frontiers in Pain Research) : two trained people beside each patient. ▸ Pain today: NCHS Data Brief 518 by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (2024) : nearly one US adult in four in 2023. ———————————————————— PEOPLE & SITES MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO: ▸ El Sidrón: cave in northern Spain where the plaque came from. ▸ Laura Weyrich: read the Neanderthal plaque. ▸ Ötzi: the Iceman, found in the Alps, with marks on his sore joints. ▸ Saqqara: Egyptian burial ground of the foot relief. ▸ Shanidar Cave: Iraqi cave of the man with the withered arm. ▸ Ralph Solecki: dug the Shanidar man out of the cave floor. ▸ Lorna Tilley: studied the young man at Man Bac, northern Vietnam. ▸ Marc Oxenham: her co-author on that grave. ▸ Friedrich Sertürner: took morphine out of opium in the early 1800s. ▸ Bayer: the company where aspirin was made in 1897. ———————————————————— 🎨 Animation by Fulcrum ———————————————————— #ancienthumans #pain #prehistory #neanderthals #archaeology #shanidar #otzi #ancientegypt #painkillers #morphine #aspirin #humanhistory #history #explainer