5 ms·

I don’t remember exactly where I read it (might have been here), but Margaret Mead is quoted as saying that the earliest sign of civilization, was a long-healed

I don’t remember exactly where I read it (might have been here), but Margaret Mead is quoted as saying that the earliest sign of civilization, was a long-healed femoral fracture, in an ancient skeleton. In nature, that kind of injury is a death sentence. It meant that the injured person was taken care of, long enough to heal. Maybe we’ll find fossils, with healed “death sentence” injuries. If anyone had ever read Lovecraft’s The Mountains of Madness, he posited a different theory about Cretaceous civilizations.

troyvit 2y ago
I'd take this with a grain of Silurian Salt, but there is some fossil evidence that a Tyrannosaurus Rex or two healed from injuries significant enough that surviving them would almost require help from somebody. The fossil of Barbara[0] "shows a particularly bad break, which goes right through the site of the tendon attachment, so most probably the tendon would have been torn off the bone [...]" If you're a very large two-legged creature a break like that could be a death sentence, but the fossilized break shows signs of healing. Sue[1] is one of the most famous T. Rex fossils and she shows many healed injuries including broken bones and bacterial infections. It's highly possible that her species is just incredibly tough, but it's also possible that they took care of each other to some degree. [0] https://www.iflscience.com/meet-barbara-the-pregnant-t-rex-with-a-football-injury-66451 https://www.iflscience.com/meet-barbara-the-pregnant-t-rex-w... [1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1393-sue-postmortem-reveals-extensive-injuries/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1393-sue-postmortem-r...
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps these T-Rexes were injured in the wild and then taken into Silurian zoos where they were rehabilitated.
  - troyvit 2y ago
    You made my day with the image you conjured!

troyvit 2y ago

I'd take this with a grain of Silurian Salt, but there is some fossil evidence that a Tyrannosaurus Rex or two healed from injuries significant enough that surviving them would almost require help from somebody. The fossil of Barbara[0] "shows a particularly bad break, which goes right through the site of the tendon attachment, so most probably the tendon would have been torn off the bone [...]" If you're a very large two-legged creature a break like that could be a death sentence, but the fossilized break shows signs of healing. Sue[1] is one of the most famous T. Rex fossils and she shows many healed injuries including broken bones and bacterial infections. It's highly possible that her species is just incredibly tough, but it's also possible that they took care of each other to some degree. [0] https://www.iflscience.com/meet-barbara-the-pregnant-t-rex-with-a-football-injury-66451 https://www.iflscience.com/meet-barbara-the-pregnant-t-rex-w... [1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1393-sue-postmortem-reveals-extensive-injuries/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1393-sue-postmortem-r...

shiroiushi 2y ago
Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps these T-Rexes were injured in the wild and then taken into Silurian zoos where they were rehabilitated.
- troyvit 2y ago
  You made my day with the image you conjured!