Άνθρωποι χειρούργησαν κρανίο… αγελάδας πριν από 5.400 χρόνια!!!

Εγχειρισμένο κρανίο αγελάδας, πριν από 5.400 χρόνια!
Βρέθηκε στην Γαλλία.
Φωτ. Fernando Ramirez Rozzi.

People surgically operated

on the skull of a... cow

5,400 Years Ago !!!

     It is known that (also) in Ancient Greece, there were surgical procedures on the scalp. There are findings in Archanes, Chios, Avdira/Abdera, etc.
     But now, it is found that about 5,000 years ago, people used stone tools to pierce the cranium of a… cow (Bos taurus), making this the 1st  known, so far, case of skull surgery on an animal!

     It is not clear whether the adult cow was alive or dead when the operation was performed. But if it were alive, the animal would not survive for long, as its skull does not show signs of healing. However, the intention of surgery remains a mystery. “If the surgery (Trepanation) was meant to save the cow, it would be the earliest known proof, so far, of a veterinary surgeon on an animal”, said the investigator-in-chief of the study by F. R. Rozzi (France's National Research Center, Toulouse). It is also possible that people simply used the cow to practice and fine-tune the technique before applying it to humans, wrote R. Rizzi and Al. Froment (biologist-anthropologist, Museum of Human, Paris).

     The cow's skull was found during excavations (1.975 – 1.985) in the Neolithic region of Champ-Durand at Vendee, on the French Atlantic coast. It dates from 3,400 to 3,000 BC.

     Originally, archaeologists thought that another cow must have caused the... hole. But the hole (6.4-4.6 cm) was so bizarre that one of the original investigators sought to examine it in 2,012. If another animal had "injured" the cow, violence would have caused fractures or fragmentation around the wound. There are no signs of such fractures, either internally or externally. Neither the hole looks like one caused by an infectious disease (syphilis, tuberculosis). Therefore, a scanning electronic microscope was used and the researchers saw signs around the hole, such as what has been observed in similar interventions in the skulls of human patients. (The earliest evidence of the hole in the human skull dates to the Mesolithic Period, 8,000-2,700 BC).

     Perhaps the ancient people woke or pierced a skull to treat a disease (epilepsy) or maybe it was part of a ritual! In the case of the cow, it is not clear why these Neolithic people attempted to save(?) a cow, perhaps with a medical disorder. It is more likely that these people have used the cow-experimental craniums forTrepanation practice.

ΜΕΤΑΦΡΑΣΗ: Δημ. Δρες.

arxeion-politismou.gr