This skull just pushed the history of surgery back 4,000 years

Before this discovery, the earliest physical evidence of mastoid surgery dated to the Proto-Byzantine period, between the fourth and ninth centuries CE, while the first written descriptions of the procedure did not appear until the 17th century.

A skull unearthed in 2018 from the Dolmen of El Pendón, a Neolithic burial monument near Reinoso in Spain’s Burgos province, changes that timeline entirely. The skull, belonging to a woman believed to be around 65 years old, showed two carefully made surgical openings behind her ears, dating the procedure to between 3800 BCE and 3000 BCE. That pushes direct archaeological evidence of ear surgery back by more than 4,000 years, making it the oldest known example ever discovered.

According to the study published in Scientific Reports, the woman likely suffered from mastoiditis, a bacterial infection of the mastoid bone that can spread to the brain if untreated. New bone growth around both surgical openings proved she survived the procedures, performed using sharpened flint tools rather than modern instruments.

The discovery challenges the long-held belief that Stone Age societies relied only on primitive remedies. Combined with other archaeological evidence of trepanation, early amputations and ancient dental treatments, it suggests prehistoric communities possessed far more advanced medical knowledge than previously believed.

Image: Wikimedia Commons