Long-term care of the injured
Cuidado prolongado de heridos y discapacitados
- Date
- c. 50 ka · confidence high
- Place
- Shanidar Cave, Kurdistan, Iraq
- Credited to
- Neanderthals
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Shanidar 1 survived for decades after an arm amputation, partial blindness and deafness, which required care from his group. The first testimony to medicine as a social practice.
Earlier cases (Dmanisi, 1.8 Ma, a toothless individual) suggest even older care, though with less certainty.
What it led to
- Retention of the knowledge of elders and the disabled: collective memory
- An ethic of care and deferred reciprocity
- The social basis of medicine and nursing
Made possible
- Medicinal plant usec. 50 ka
- Surgical amputationc. 31 ka
- Medicinal plant use
- Surgical amputation