How Long Have We Been Caring For Each Other?
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- Опубликовано: 12 май 2024
- When did practicing medicine - in its varied, complex forms (from sharing medicinal plants to the earliest surgeries) - become something that we actually started doing? While it’s a hard question to answer, it’s possible that our tendency to heal one another might have been with us for even longer than we've been human.
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> carefully removes legs avoiding nerves and blood vessels
> Prevents infection with plants
Hats off to this very ancient surgon!
+
Patient survives. And lives to double the age.
DAMN, I'm flabbergasted.
Our ancestors were a lot smarter than we think.
not to mention those things can only be accomplished if the patient is painless or sedated. I wonder what the local stone type was and did they make custom one-off tools for the job.
@@PalimpsestProdMost likely obsidian.Cuts well and is available(Borneo is volcanic).
Our ancestors were hunter-gatherers for millions of years. Having to butcher their own catches gave them intimate knowledge of anatomy. It is not surprising they could perform complex surgery.
My thoughts exactly
I didn't even think about that, but I have no doubt that you're right about this!
Huh that is a really interesting point
Valid point, even until fairly recently, our butchers and barbers doubled as doctors from time to time. And its fair to say we've learned (and re-learned) a thing or two over time.
It shouldn't be, and yet ppl are surprised that ancient humans cared for each other when injured or disabled. Possibly bc we view that time as "any injured human would slow the group down" time; so like your point, ppl now just don't think ppl then were advanced. But I also wonder if it's our attitudes today towards the injured or disabled. Hell, ppl are still arguing whether altruism is innate or learned.
Ancient people: I cut through the leg carefully taking anatomy into consideration so my family member survives.
People in the Civil War: So anyways I started sawing.
During wartime, a lot of injuries must be handled in a short period of time. Sometimes by medics with minimal training.
@@brothermine2292 It’s just funny how knowledge can seem to revert over time.
>Wolfie54545 : Sure, depending on how sophisticated one's sense of humor is.
You're a bit late acknowledging the "seems to" difference between fact & misinterpretation.
that's not what happened at all. civil war advanced many techniques, including plastic surgery. for each skilled "ancient" surgeon, many many many more died from injuries, infection, complications. you have to learn how to interpret information better.
Selection bias: it's hard to see people who died of surgery in the fossil record because they look the same as people who just got a leg cut off or something
Thank goodness we have anesthesia now 😅
And anti-biotics!
Fr bruh
Yea!
My daughter was delivered with a emergency cesarean, where I got spinal shot so I was awake during the whole procedure. The anesthesiologist had a full tray of drugs ready to be administered, which is just amazing living in a time where both me baby and be came out alive and well. Don’t think anything on that tray needed to be used as the spinal did its work, felt absolutely nothing and wasn’t scary at all. Before modern medicine I think we would have been lucky if one of us came out alive after that, and imagine the pain, fear and horror. Also how stressful it most have been preforming a procedure in a screaming patient wiggling in pain.
Ikr. That's why I always roll my eyes when people say they want to time travel back in time. No you don't. Your really don't.
In those days, they had the B O N K.
I have said it a thousand times and I will say it a thousand times more. Ancient doesn't equal stupid. Given that life, as it is generally accepted, appeared only once on our planet, our lineages have been around for quite a long time. We picked up a few things along the way.
I’m of the opinion that humans as a whole have never been stupid.
It’s just that through the power of language we have preserve and pass on knowledge discovered by others, and can build from the foundation of that knowledge. This was then massively accelerated by writing and the ability of most of the population being how to read, so knowledge can be transmitted in its original form without being altered.
So of course we know more than our ancient ancestors because we stand on a pillar of millennia of preserved knowledge.
That doesn’t mean they couldn’t observe the world around them and draw conclusions from it.
“We’re ALL Devo!”
- Devo
@@complectogramIts really just preservation bias that poses the problem. We have these " great civilizations" that appeared at the end of the neolithic that were building huge monumental stone structures. But a close inspection of the forms of ancient stone architecture reveal forms influenced by wooden structures. Decorative carved lap joints, dovetail joints, mortise and tenons, pegs, etc. It is clear that these cultures had preceding monumental WOODEN architecture before this. But none of it survives. The same is true going into metalworking ages... we have items made of metal that seem to follow the form of previous wooden tools that are just lost to time. How many cultures had writing on tree bark or carved directly into the trees? There is simply this massive gulf in human culture that we may never even get a glimpse into because it was occupied by wood as the primary building and tool material.
@@patreekotime4578 - In 2022, 2 beams of wood worked with stone tools and that fit together, were discovered in Zambia dating from nearly 500,000 MYA. In 1989, a polished wooden plank was discovered on the banks of the Jordan River dating from 780,000+ YA. That's pre-Sapien, folks - Erectus, Neanderthal, Heidelbergensis, take your pick.
---------------
The farther back in time we look, the smarter our predecessors become. ^_^
It's not that they were stupid. It's just that they were primitive.
Hey this is my lecturers work! Shout out to Renaud and his team, with Betty the multicollecter (ICP-MS), at Southern Cross Uni! Thanks for giving the date to the oldest currently known surgery patient!
🤩
Your lecturer works for Eons producing videos, cool! I'd love to study media
Thank you, scholars
Man that chimp footage was wild. It makes you wonder just how ancient some of our behaviors and activities are.
How chimps wage war verses how early humans did is another example of this; really not that far removed. Chimps are pretty clever, just not able to do the abstract thinking we can.
@@ejomatic7480neither can many humans, but here we are
A lot of people are still afraid of the dark, which makes sense given what our ancestors had to contend with... Kinda makes you wonder about claustrophobia. In their case, fear of being in a cave. (just speculation)
I have a seven month year old and he's convinced me that we must have spent thousands if not tens of thousands of years communicating with what we'd call baby babble today. It makes so much sense that as we developed more complex speech we started off with basic sounds that were all contextual, based in nonverbal communication like body language and facial cues. Those being extended to sounds and those sounds into the first words is fun to think about, and it might explain how all babies seem to be hardwired to absorb any language and apply it to some protolanguage schematic that sorts all the noise into structure. That must have developed before we all split into the major language groups we have today.
I imagine even animal calls and body language have regional 'dialects'...
I’ve had a similar leg surgery to the first one mentioned and I’m still getting pain meds because of how painful it is a couple weeks later, I can’t imagine going through the surgery itself with nothing. That guy had guts of steel
You'd be surprised what people can cope with when they don't have another option
That CHILD had guts of steel, he was only 11-14
Maybe? Let's not forget that, if they knew about plants that could prevent infection, then they probably ALSO knew about plants that could help with pain.
Indigenous Turtle Island scholars cite that those of their ancestors who specialized in medicine knew of literal THOUSANDS of different plants and their uses -- possibly even in the tens of thousands.
A lot of those plants that we think of as 'weeds' today, are simply plants that we have _forgotten_ the usage of, because the colonists who drove the Indigenous peoples out didn't care to know or understand such things.
And those weeds represent only a fraction of the plant diversity that existed those thousands of years ago.
I like to imagine that many of those plants can exist again, if only we start to care about creating less spaces for lawns and more spaces of native plants to thrive, interact with, and support one another properly... it's how ecosystems work!
Your body creates it's own pain inhibiting enzymes if you let it. Taking pain meds keeps your body from doing it.
@@TreeHairedGingerAleI suspect that the pain-killing properties of willow bark were known a very long time ago and were communicated between hominids. Folk medicine like that probably goes back hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions.
"Ok Oog, you're going to feel a little pinch..."
*Lifts stone ax overhead*
proceeds to perform better surgery than 1800 century doctors
as a person who was once hospitalized on iv antibiotics due to an enormous dental abscess I deeply feel for that poor neanderthal
Evidence that people lived despite not being able to survive on their own always gets me. Idk man... It's just natural to care for each other... And we always have cared for each other.... Shanidar 1 tugs on my heart strings 😭
You missed the fact that the Neanderthal Shanidar....or "Creb" if you're a Clan of the Cave Bear fan, DID have surgery to remove his damaged arm. He lived for decades after the surgery, even with other critical injuries. His injuries were most likely from an attack from a large animal that could have easily killed him, but someone performed the surgery and helped with his other serious wounds.
I'm Palaeolithic abthropologist / archaeologist by profession with two young sons and so I watch these episides with interest. This was a particularly excellent episode, that inspires further curiosity and research. My sons (one of who says he wants to become a doctor like his grandfather) loved it and did some more research and turned it into a report for this 5th grade class.
@richardengelhardt582 - Carry on, Young Scholar - carry on!
So cool to hear how a new generation is getting inspired! Who knows, maybe in a few decades we'll be listening to your son's research!
This is the best channel on youtube. Thanks for existing.
As a medical doctor from eastern Borneo, this is awesome!
That Neanderthal art is so touching. The man caring for the child 5:17, and the woman with a flower in her hair, while dad carries the toddler 5:03. So beautiful.
Yeah, AI generated. It is wonderful to save some budget.
@@RenzitoARGI dont think its AI generated...
@@k.g.b5816 It's not a matter of what you think. The author is not cited anywhere. Given that each is a piece that would take an artist a couple of days to make... We can be sure it would cost quite a bit.
AI generated, for sure.
@@RenzitoARG Those are 3D models.
The images are so linked in the Google doc in the description
This is actually fascinating, seeing not only us taking care of each other way back but other species doing it as well. That’s so cool and yeah, does give me some hope
Wow, this is the first time I’ve been able to watch a new Eons video this soon after release! And how fitting it’s this topic as I’m winding down after my night shift at the hospital 😂
Don't call this compassion! I got a surgery from that same caveman a few thousand years back, and I had to pay him 30,000 berries! That's over a 100,000 in today's market.
Underrated comment.
found the american.
Well-played 🤣
Should hire Cave-Lawyer and sue! Justice was probably a little more Ruthless back in the day!
@@SuperPickle15We have a version of that in Germany as well: 36 °C outside today? That's 72 Marks!
Oooh, I've been waiting for this episode since the research was released! Compassion and curiosity are an incredible pair of traits.
Also, if this doesn't inspire at least one sci-fi novel, I'm going to be astonished. The implications of surgical knowledge being tens of thousands of years older than the longest-lasting, large-scale, societal structures that we know of are... fascinating and fraught.
There is a character in a book by Jean M Auel (The Clan of the Cave Bear) who is based on Shanidar 1.
@@terrysincheff6682 I haven't seen the Shanidar 1 video yet, but I know the book series. The character you talked about must be Creb.
@@scientiaorbis If you go back and watch this video, you will see him talking about a neanderthal remains they have named "Shanidar 1". And, yes that would be Creb.
Have you read all of the books in the series?
@@terrysincheff6682Yes, I read all books of the series. The last one was a bit disappointing, at least in my opinion.
@@scientiaorbis My wife didn't care for the last book either. My neighbor is an artist, and liked the last book the best.
Bad news though.. The patient only lasted 2 months than expired because of crushing debt because his insurance denied pre-authorisation.
I don't even know why I'm so surprised (or should I say "shocked") by those chimps behavior. Animals are really intelligent, I always knew that. We hardly invented anything, we mostly inherited what we're capable of. Thank you so much for sharing!
Just noticed that Steve is no longer in the patreon supporters. I hope he is ok.
He stopped being a patron several years ago, actually. And yes, I hope hes OK too.
He's recovering from a Stone Age surgery procedure.
Just popping in to say thank you to you patreons out there. I wish I could be one too but I just don't have the funds...
Odd thinking that hunter-gatherers wouldn't be capable of surgery. I still have family in Greenland for whom cutting up animals is very natural, and yes there are differences in anatomy between seals, musk oxen, reindeer, polar bears, walrusses, and narwhals - but there are also striking similarities, and this women, men, and children are very capable with cutting tools. The stitch works of Inuit women was excellent. I have no doubt that they'd be able to perform surgery with stone tools!
Let's not forget, this was in a child. Which technically is more of a burden on a tribe than a benefit. So love is at the heart of us
Some ants make medicine for their colonies. To ward off bacterial and virus infections.
In regards to the Chimps: it's very possible that it's a new "skill" learned recently. For example: Orangutans have been obeserved washing things and, trying, to saw things after seeing people do it. So what modern Great Apes do might be a recent trait or skill rather than an ancient one. Still Great Job on the Video! :)
Would be useful in that case if we could find other groups of chimps with no contact with that group that also did it. Or perhaps see if bonobos do it
Glad I'm not the only one who really wants to know more about this!
There are pretty big vessels including arteries which you have to cut if you amputate a limb. Which means they must have had some understanding on how to stop pretty major bleeding. Which is in fact even more remarkable.
I'm so happy get to live in a nation with western medicine - even more so to have socialized health care and never fearing of losing everything just due to getting sick!
Absolutely. I’ve become obsessed with US politics and I can never square that “the most advanced country” does not have universal healthcare - the potential stress must be enormous for lower 1/3 of their population. I also have trouble accepting the astronomical cost of higher education. Isn’t it in a society’s individuals desire to improve their lot an overall benefit to that society?
Reminder that Canada is going to lose its free Healthcare because it's just too expensive.
06:47, when a line from the presenter just deserves the 'thumbs up' for the whole video.
That chimp research blew me away! Though I guess it really shouldn't. It seems a common trend that whenever we assume a behavior is unique to humans, we can find it (or similar behaviors) in other species. We are more connected and alike to other animals today than we might like to assume. That said, our ingenuity is no less amazing because of it. I still can't believe that ancient surgeon prevented infection in the *tropics* of all places!
As for the difference between marsupials and placentals, I want to say: maybe pelvic structure (based on reproduction)?
Edit: I was (kinda) right!
I love stuff like this. Stefan Milo actually does vids on this regularly. Seeing the humanity in the humans who came before us. Nandy is prob one of my fave fossils, so it's v cool to learn about more stuff like this!
Had surgery today! Glad it’s a bit more sophisticated now.
I can't even survive period cramps without painkillers! (Hope you're recovering well!)
I'm suprised humans had the endurance to tank these painful hours
Or to beat the infections!
Prolly got used to it
It very likely they had access to opium or some other form of analgesic. Even alcohol would be better than nothing and there's no reason to think they didn't have either. If they're intelligent enough to perform surgery then they would surely have a means to dull pain.
Mushrooms 😊
You were not lying, that observed chimp behavior is mind blowing.
Great video! The writing is just excellent: very clear and compelling.
This Channel is a miracle.
What extraordinary discoveries. Thanks for posting.
Fun fact! If this had happened in the USA they would have just finished paying off their medical debt around the 30,000 years after the surgery.
Great video as always! Would be great if we could get any news on a new Podcast series? It was by far one of my favourite shows when it came out.
Great episode. The more we learn, the more it becomes clear, to me at least, how our species made it through some very tough times and circumstances.
That was a fascinating topic.
That Blake giggle gets me every time! But seriously love the whole show!
Thank you for acknowledging native lands as part of fossil finding.
This makes me feel emotional for some reason
Loved the content. Learned something new.
Dogs clean their wounds and sooth the pain by licking and also do that on other dogs and their humans. My dog had joint pain due to a deformity and licked his joint to cool it, when it was warm (when that occured, we gave him pain killers and let him rest for a while, because it was not treatable, unfortunately. It was operated once, but that didn't help a lot).
A movie about shanidar 1 that follows his life & how he got his injuries would be pretty interesting & sad
I'm squeamish as hell, but a huge PBS Eons fan. I thought I could stick it out but 1:00min in I'm out 😭 I'm sure the episode is as educational, fascinating, and wonderful as usual. Thank you for all your hard work!
Look into desensitization therapy. If this turns you away there may be valuable medical advice you don't even come close to because you shy away from the resources around it
Watching in spite of being squeamish is the best remedy.
It didn’t blow my mind. I expected it already. They’re smarter than we give them credit.
Now I didn't clap my hands on my head, but my eyebrows raised for chimps reveal 😮
That picture with the man healing the child reminds me of the first location in the Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey video game; The Hidden Waterfall.
Hi Blake!
Wow, this is a really interesting find.
I have pet rats (fancies) and they are such empathetic little creatures, if you have even a tiny cut or scratch they constantly try to look after it for you and they’ll check on their friends and your teeth (look up rodentistry) constantly to make sure you aren’t injured. When I got a little tattoo on my hand I was petting one of my rats after and she grabbed my hand and rotated it then sniffed the tattoo, realised I was injured and freaked out for a second and made it her duty to look after it until it was healed 🥰 I also had hip surgery and my two boys were confused why I wasn’t leaving my bed to come to their cage so I had my sister get them and put them on my bed, they immediately started sniffing then walked over to my leg and started grabbing at my dress where the bandages were underneath and would constantly go over to my leg and do their rat equivalent of purring (boggling) on me and cuddling on top the bandages. When one of my girls passed in her sleep her sister stayed and cuddled her and she was cold to the touch everywhere except for the spot where her sister stayed and cuddled her or if they fall over or get hurt playing their friends will look after them until they see you then they’ll come up to the cage door or shake their jingly toys or thump the cage bars to get my attention then they’ll pull my hand directly over to whoever is sick or injured. I feel like caring comes with consciousness for many living things even some predatory species love and raise their babies and will howl or cry if a baby passes or is taken
It's only been very recently, during post-colonialization, where social care has become demonized: considered unimportant at best, or 'a sign of weakness' at worst.
We will not truly advance as a species until we remember that _no one_ can accomplish much of anything alone. We need to stop devaluing ourselves and each other with rampant hoarding and insecurity-based competition, and create the *functional* social supports that we SHOULD have as living beings, but _especially_ as human ones.
Thank you
1. I saw the chimp video in October at a Jane Goodall talk in Toronto!
2. Shanidar 1 was fictionalized as "Creb"in Clan of the Cave Bear. He was the spiritual leader, and he worked with medicine women. He used datura that they prepared as a visionary substance.
Later, datura is used as anesthesia, which it is by some native peoples.
Trey the Explainer made a video on this subject diving into prehistoric tendencies of people to attempt surgeries and helping each other heal. If you're still interested in the subject after this video you can go check it out.
I just love this channel ❤😊❤
I loved this episode! 💜
Yaaaaay new PBS Eons video!
“Hey, like a surgeon
Cuttin' for the very first time” ~ weird Al.
For millions of years hominids have been treating each other for free.
Capitalism: Hold my stethoscope
Some comments are saying “thank goodness we have anesthesia now” and I couldn’t agree more. I wish I hadn’t seen that video of the child last month that had to have an amputation done in a tent without it.
Humans have always been as smart as we are. Intelligence is not in the possession of knowledge, but in the acquisition and application of it.
I know it's not quite a shared phylogenetic trait, but Matabele ants also practice medicine after raiding.
So it might be that like many other things, medicine is more a survival strategy than a human trait.
Thank for your work.
From what I understand, there has also recently been observed I believe Bonobo's attending and aiding birth's, and there is strong speculation for basic gynecological aid and care among early hominid females, especially given the physical difficulties of human birth.
This makes me think we descended from an advanced civilization that came to earth or had to restart
@TREYtheExplainer also made a really cool video on a similar topic, called "disabilities in prehistory" which shows a are examples of early human fossils which showed evidence of things ranging from birth defects and deformities, blindness and deafness, amputated limbs, i believe one with a mental condition (don't remember the specifics) whos parents spoiled her with dates to the point her teeth were rotten, as well as someone who had a skull surgery, and looked to have survived the operation. highly recommend giving it a watch as it also talks about how compassionate early humans actually were, and its more than media interpretations would have you believe.
The fact about chimps applying medicine blew me out the water. thx for the heads up.
*Me:* struggling with calculus and afraid of dentists
*Dental calculus:*
menyala abangkuh🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Hey Eons, huge fan of the show! Is there a reason you guys change the name of your uploads after a while? I've seen a few educational RUclips channels do this. Hope it isn't a trade secret
Apparently a dog licking another dog's wounds is not considered medical care in this context, despite it being an effective way to prevent infection.
Interesting thought! Before this video I would have said "of course animals dont provide medical care for each other!" but this has me rethinking that!
I knew about the epipubic bones. Also, there's an extra hole or something in the palate of a thylacine, compared to that of a dog.
Not surprising to me at all, it has been shown that primates, as well as other animals, such as canines, have empathy for their own kind.
They will fawn over them, and if in any way possible, help treat their injury or illness. Or, at the very least, they will try.
It's fun to imagine this kid playing, jumping and climbing despite their family telling him not to. Breaking his leg and, after being scolded for a bit, getting his injury treated
Many animals will chew off a trapped limb, so it would really surprise me if human ancestors and relatives wouldn’t have used their tools to do the same, especially given that they sheltered in areas prone to rock falls. And if you know that this can be done successfully, you might consider it an option for other things like infection or shattered bones.
Me here, eating lunch, learning something, and then OMG LEACHES AND IT'S STILL LEACHING WHY WON'T THE SWITCH TO A NEW CLIP.
Wow! I thought that medicine started in early antiquity.
Long time ago we used to present apes as examples of how far we'd come. How elevated we were compared to them. Neanderthals as brutish apelike cavemen. Now we use apes and neanderthals as examples of intelligence, empathy and humanism - in the hope that we will not look to hard on ourselves.
North 02 has some excellent information on this subject, too, including mentioning the insects being used by chimps.
Miss him!
I got the question at the end right!
You'll need to update that final answer, though. Epipubic bones may be absent in placentals, but they are present in a number of mammal groups beyond marsupials. Other than Marsupalia, they are present in monotremes, in multituberculates, and essentially all Mesozoic mammal groups (including the eutherian ancestors of placentals). In fact, some near-mammal groups like tritylodonts had them.
You left out KNM-ER 1808, an example from about 1.6 million years ago. It was an adult female Homo ergaster who suffered from Hypervitaminosis A, a very painful, ultimately fatal condition. Her life was probably prolonged before her death by the care of her clan/tribe members.
My guess about fossil marsupials was "probably some process on the pelvis that the pouch soft tissue attaches to" which was close.
I cant wait until we find out that trees can send out information requests and get answers basically inventing the internet 100mio years ago
We don’t give Animals enough credit for intelligence.Period 😊
Hopefully, scientists can find that particular insect and see if it has any of the soothing properties that can be synthesized into medication.
Wow! Im from Borneo and didnt know of this surgeon 😅 it sounds like an excavation that may have been done in Niah Cave here in Sarawak, but i may be wrong hahaha
It's from sangkulirang karst, but i believe that medical knowledge should be known all over borneo at that time
How do you amputate a limb without severing nerves and blood vessels?
chips medicating each other gives me hope for civilization after our ends
Is it possible that the newly observed behavior with the insects and chimp wounds isn't just newly observed but in fact a newly learned/evolved behavior?
See that would be really interesting to know!
I figured the trivia question had to do with the pelvis bones. It is where the babies come through.
Matabele ants can identify and treat infected wounds in comrades with an antibiotic they produce and secrete.
Thank you all for answering my questions. I swear this is the 10th time at least
Trey the Explainer did an awesome episode on this too. 😁
My answer for the question at the end was to check the dentition - if a quadrant has 4 or 5 incisors and/or 4 molars then it's likely a marsupial.
4:57 Yeah, a friend of mine had a dry socket so her dentist took clove oil and destroyed the nerve, stopping the pain.
I am confident that the first surgery took place a minimum of 40 five thousand years ago. He all ready mentioned Shanidar one, at 40 thousand years ago. ( time 3:59/9:38 )The tile of the program is 30.000 year old surgery.