Russian scientists have discovered a 5,000-year-old skull of a man who had undergone ancient brain surgery and most probably died from it.
According to a report in Times Now, researchers have shown incredible 3D images from Crimea which show proof of trepanation surgery (practice of drilling a hole in the skull of the patient) on the Bronze Age man who was in his 20s. The researchers said that the surgery was not successful and the "unlucky" patient did not survive for long after undergoing a stone 'scalpel'.
According to Head of the Laboratory of Contextual Anthropology Dr Maria Dobrovolskaya, this is evident from the absence of obvious traces of healing since traces of trepanation are otherwise clearly visible on the surface of the bone.
According to a report in Daily mail, scientists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow said that the ancient doctor most definitely possessed a surgical set of stone tools.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @03:02AM
It's Runaway's, at the time when he lost his marbles.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 26 2020, @03:19AM (9 children)
5,000 years ago would put it at the end of the Neolithic. The crafting of "stone tools" had become quite sophisticated by that point. The Metropolitan Museum in New York has a display of Neolithic tools from proto-Egypt that exhibit a mind-bogglingly high level of flint-knapping skill. They definitely were able to make stone tools small enough and refined enough to use in brain surgery.
This has come up before on Soylent, but the obsidian scalpels that stone age people used are still preferred by some modern surgeons [cnn.com]. The width of the edge of an obsidian blade is 30 angstroms vs. 300-600 angstroms of household razor blades.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @03:47AM (6 children)
Yeah, that is about where Runaway is, on the evolutionary ladder. But I think he refused the brain surgery, so still has the old, pre-neo-lithic brain.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 26 2020, @04:23AM (5 children)
Runaway and I don't agree on much at all. He distrusts me, and I distrust him. But this is a gratuitous swipe at him. Please don't waste time on this. If it's a humorous jab at him or me, great, but please don't let it come to be what predominates on Soylent.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @06:26AM (4 children)
But of course. There's nothing to be agreed or disagreed with Runaway, there's no matter of agreement with a vacuous entity, this is so self evident it bears no discussion.
You give him too much credit, the poor sod doesn't harbor enough intelligence to be able of disagreement. His observable reaction that you witness on S/N pages is just a knee jerk, it is his attempt to shake off from his legs the foetid matter that leaks from the organ he uses to mimic the thinking processes, namely his ass. He even moved his head there.
As for your distrust in him, believe it or not, it is just a waste of time. The rational reaction is to ignore him. I should do it myself, if not for the swarm of shitflies he attracts becoming a danger to the public health.
Pas du tout, my dear phoenix666, pas du tout. You do not know he paid for it in advance 20 times over? It is now the delivery for that lying hypocrite fashist asshole.
(Score: 2, Informative) by c0lo on Monday October 26 2020, @11:44AM (3 children)
Flamebait? That's not flamebait, it's not going to ever start any flame war. It's artistically exaggerated, it provides no debatable proof and has no references that can be the topic of a dispute.
You want a flamebait post? I'll give you an +Informative/-Flamebait right here, by saying "whoever modded as "Flamebait" the parent post is a history ignoramus who has no idea of what vituperatio [wikipedia.org] is and, not knowing the history, is condemned to repeat it".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday October 26 2020, @02:19PM
Changed the mod to troll for ya. Don't worry, it's a free service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2020, @11:05AM (1 child)
Aw, so sad, your sock puppet got downmodded.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 27 2020, @11:34AM
Not enough downmodded, no. But I'm glad it caught your attention, that was my intention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday October 26 2020, @08:52AM (1 child)
Of course, if the "doctors" were fancy enough to have started to bling up their implement collection, ceremonies often require bling as much as anything else, perhaps they'd use a practically inferior one just because it looked good, and of course glasses like obsidian do look good.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 26 2020, @01:17PM
I agree. My point in mentioning the obsidian scalpel was to counter the natural reaction many have to hearing "stone tool," which connotes "primitive, crude." They had different points they used for different tasks such as drilling or sawing, and by that period had raised the crafting of them to an art form.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by arslan on Monday October 26 2020, @03:41AM (15 children)
So how do they establish the intent of that exercise? For all we know, it could be torture between feuding clans or maybe a caveman Hannibal Lecter harvesting his/her next meal or some demonic cult ritual, etc. In fact isn't ritualistic behaviours a long suspected reasons for trepanation?
"Laboratory of Contextual Anthropology"... is that even a real science?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @04:22AM (3 children)
I think it was an early form of gay conversion therapy. You know what those Neanderthals are like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @04:37AM (1 child)
An uncanny resemblance to you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @06:13AM
"Prey away the gay", I say! Of course, this is how it would have worked out. The non-reproducing members of the clan would, you know, sacrifice themselves for the "breeders", as gay warriors. Too bad the Neaderthal Valley people realized this too late, after they had invited Mike Pence to speak.
(Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Monday October 26 2020, @08:55AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @04:35AM
Depending on the context, it may.
In the nutherguy_ context, you can bet it's not, he wouldn't know his brain from his shriveled nutsack.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @04:43AM (2 children)
One day they will say the same about the flu vaccines, now stopped in singapore after 48 deaths.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/use-of-two-influenza-vaccines-should-stop-temporarily-after-deaths-in-south-korea [straitstimes.com]
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Monday October 26 2020, @10:01PM (1 child)
https://sourceforge.net/p/costat/code/ci/master/tree/covid_flu_correlation_over_time.gif. [sourceforge.net]
A 'data movie' mapping covid lethality across flu vaccination of the elderly in several countries.
(The dataset is all there in the Sourceforge project)
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Monday October 26 2020, @10:06PM
https://sourceforge.net/p/costat/code/ci/master/tree/covid_flu_correlation_over_time.gif [sourceforge.net]
^^ corrected link. Wait a few second for the gif to roll past February
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 26 2020, @01:32PM (3 children)
I would suppose archaeologists reckon trepanation was a medical procedure and not a means of torture because it's precise, careful work to drill into and then cut out sections of skull the way they did. If you want to inflict pain for pain's sake, there are much easier ways that leave much different marks behind. Ie., if you want the subject of the trepanation to live, you're going to be careful; if you want them to suffer and die, you're gonna bash a hole in the skull instead of cutting one. Also, the remains from TFA were interred in a burial mound. That's not something you'd do for somebody you'd tortured to death.
The same sort of reasoning applies to cannibalism as an explanation.
Ritualistic explanations (ie. demonic cult ritual) are more plausible, but in that case they'd see more bodies with the same marks in that area and probably find totems or other ritual objects near the remains to connect them to such a practice.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday October 26 2020, @01:55PM (2 children)
My bet is they were carefully extracting demons from a privileged patient - a somewhat rare case which may or may not be part of politics and related torture..
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 26 2020, @02:22PM (1 child)
I just hope they gave the poor bastard something powerful to knock him out, because the only thing worse than being awake while somebody drills into your skull is having somebody drill into your skull with a hand-pump or bow drill.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @02:37PM
A head blow with an obsidian axe?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @06:31PM
another big leap to assume the surgery killed the patient instead of the surgery just being too late to save the patient.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Tuesday October 27 2020, @02:12AM
I think it's pretty well established that there are ancient skulls showing surgical-style cuts that *healed*. Also, I've seen documentaries shot in Africa where cutting in to the skull is a time-honored tradition. In some cases it may have been done due to beliefs in releasing evil spirits or something. Now combine that with the fact that encephalitis or head trauma can lead to brain swelling where trepanation to relieve the pressure is actually a sound treatment, and you've got yourself a practice going--even if you don't understand why it works.
I don't know why this particular skull is more newsworthy than the others. Of course I didn't read TFA...
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2020, @10:39AM
May help reduce effects from brain swelling due to head injuries or similar.
FWIW I wouldn't call it brain surgery if it's just poking holes in the skull and not intentionally touching the brain at all.