Health & biology · c. 7,000 BCE

Trepanation

Neolithic healers drilled holes in living skulls, and many patients survived and healed.

Trepanned skulls from around 7000 BCE show bone regrowth, proving deliberate surgery on the living. It is the oldest known surgical procedure and was practised on every inhabited continent.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

First stone tools 3.3M years ago

What it led to 1

Edwin Smith Papyrus 1600 BCE

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

World population over a million years Latest: 6.27k million people (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, table 'Total World Population' (Kremer series); Kremer 1993, Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990, QJE 108(3)