Jakarta, IO – The human remains, with a missing left leg, were found by an expedition team led by Australian and Indonesian archaeologists in 2020 in Liang Tebo Cave, East Kalimantan, reported Detik, Tuesday (28/3).
A peer review study claims that it is the oldest evidence of amputation in the world and the earliest known evidence of medical surgery in human history.
Dr. Tim Maloney, a researcher from Australia Griffith University, said there was proof of medical treatment. Therefore it can be concluded that the missing leg was due to amputation, not accident nor animal attack. The thesis has been published in the journal Nature.
But now that claim is being refuted. A team of doctors from Newcastle called it a lack of knowledge about orthopedic practice. In addition, Prof Zsolt Baloghan, an accident surgeon at John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, stated to the media that he had serious doubts about the conclusion.
“The conclusion of surgical amputation 31,000 years ago is impossible. There are many more plausible causes,” says Balogh.
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Balogh also said the most obvious one is a simple open fracture, where the person hurts his leg, causing damage to the soft tissue instead of the bone. Claims of amputation also does not match the photos.
He stressed that the better conclusion should be that prehistoric humans already had the ability to treat someone who lost a limb. (rr)