If the hands and feet of the body are damaged, it is cut off. But do you know when a person's hand or leg was cut off for the first time? When was the organ removed by surgery for the first time? According to a paper published in Nature, researchers have found the body of an ancient adolescent without a lower leg on the island of Borneo.

Buried approximately 31,000 years ago, and bearing all the telltale indicators of an intentional and successful amputation, the body provides the earliest evidence of such a surgery. It suggests that ancient peoples completed complex medical procedures many years prior to previous approximations. This incident belongs to the Stone Age.

Tim Maloney, an archaeologist from Griffith University and study co-author, said the successful amputation strongly suggests early societies, at least those in Borneo, understood advanced medical concepts.

Not only of the operation itself and negotiating the complexities of removing the lower left [leg] of a child, but there's a very strong case for [their] understanding the need for antiseptic and antimicrobial management to enable the patient, this individual, to survive.