It turns out that people successfully performed medical operations as early as 31,000 years ago.

A skeleton discovered in Borneo forces a revision of the history of ancient medicine.

Amputations were successfully performed for about 31,000 yearsback.Discuss

Prior to this, the earliest known amputationconcerned a 7,000-year-old skeleton found in France. It has now emerged that the Stone Age hunter-gatherers who lived in what is now the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan had sophisticated medical knowledge of anatomy.

The found skeleton is missing the left ankle and foot.At the same time, it became clear to scientists that they were removed deliberately. The skeleton belonged to a man who died at the age of about 20 years. Despite the incredible amputation, he apparently lived another six to nine years after the operation. And this means that ancient people knew how to care for wounds.