Were people with disabilities cared for in prehistory?

According to an anecdote from which it has not been possible to discern its veracity (as usually happens in many of the quotes supposedly said by famous people), the anthropologist Margaret Mead, when asked what she considered to be humanity's first sign of civilization, replied that the remains of a healed femur from the Paleolithic.

According to this legend, Mead went on to explain to the curious student who asked the question that in the animal kingdom, when an animal was injured, it was left to its own devices. On the other hand, the first human societies showed without any doubt that the care of the crippled and the sick was a common practice in the tribes of Prehistory.

Leaving aside whether this anecdote is true or not, we can ask ourselves the following: Is it true that compassion and helping others are the exclusive patrimony of the human being? What signs do we find in Prehistory that show us that the first human communities helped each other to survive?

• Related article: "The 6 stages of Prehistory"

Were people with disabilities cared for in Prehistory?

The answer to the question is a resounding yes. And it is that the archaeological evidences speak for themselves; There have been many discoveries of fractured bones in the skeletons of people who, according to analysis, they lived many years after the accident. This means, of course, that our prehistoric ancestors were clearly aware of group and gave their help and care to the weakest, the wounded and the people disabled

Thus, the alleged statement of Margaret Mead has a solid foundation. What the eminent anthropologist is wrong about is her statement that, in the animal kingdom, the wounded are left to their fate. This is not so, at least among primates, our closest relatives.

• You may be interested in: "The theory of biological evolution: what it is and what it explains"

Exclusive patrimony of the human being?

When chimpanzee communities are studied, the reality that caring for the sick is not something exclusive to humans becomes clear. These animals have been known to take care of sick members of the group, and females have been known to adopt orphaned young as their own. This behavior, as we can see, is not too far from human behavior.

Some studies go further and ensure that chimpanzees exercise rudimentary medicine to heal wounds. Apparently, these primates apply the substance of specific insects to bleeding wounds, which later studies have shown to have high antibacterial properties. How chimpanzees discovered these healing and antibiotic properties is a mystery.

In any case, what this curious fact demonstrates is that the willingness to assist and help others is shared by many species. Of course, this interest in the well-being of others entails a series of adaptations and changes in specific areas of the brain, so a sufficiently developed brain is needed, as is the case in humans and primates superiors.

Roberto Sáez, in his interesting study on Prehistory and the origin of compassion (see bibliography), makes it very clear that to reach this stage of mutual aid, first there had to be a series of evolutionary changes in the parietal zones, which are responsible for our socialization. Over the millennia, the feeling of compassion arose, necessary to protect the group in a hostile environment in which, if they had lived alone and without affective ties, human beings would not have survived.

Thus, compassion, that feeling of empathy towards our fellow men, was born during Prehistory and settled in the minds of human communities with the aim of guaranteeing the survival of the group and, therefore, of the species.

• Related article: "Empathy, much more than putting yourself in another's place"

Neanderthal care

Until not many years ago, the image people had of Neanderthals was of rather crude and primitive beings. Fortunately, this image has changed, and today the public is quite aware that these relatives of ours were just as human as we were.

Neanderthals not only buried their dead (that is, they were aware of death and had a series of of rituals around her) but also cared for their sick, injured and disabled relatives. There are numerous examples that attest to this "Neanderthal compassion", such as the famous case of Nandy, a skeleton found in the Shanidar cave, in Iraq, and which belonged to a Neanderthal man of about 40 years.

What surprised the scientific community is that Nandy had lived to such an advanced age (his four centuries would correspond to about 80 years of age). Homo sapiens current), when he had enough pathologies to cause his death much earlier. In fact, Nandy's skeleton is one of the prehistoric remains that presents the most pathologies; among them, serious cranial deformations that, according to experts, would have caused blindness and practically complete deafness. In addition, Nandy was unable to walk, since his lower extremities also present serious malformations.

How did Nandy survive the hostile environment of the Pleistocene with such a pathological picture? The answer is very simple: his group took care of him until his death. They not only fed him, but they also carried him on their journeys (remember that the Neanderthals were nomads). Thus, thanks to the compassion generated by the evolution of the brain and the affective ties that all this entails, Nandy found a flattering environment to survive.

Love, compassion and survival

Nandy's case is by no means isolated. We found countless testimonies that both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens They took care of their relatives. One of the most beautiful cases, described by the aforementioned Robert Sáez, is that of a girl from Atapuerca that he was born with serious problems forming in his skull, probably dragged from the gestation. Almost without any doubt, the girl had a severe disability; Despite that, he managed to survive until he was ten years old. thanks to the care of his group.

According to Sáez, this case exemplifies a difficulty that primitive humans encountered: the understanding of congenital disability and their adaptation to it. Because while it was easy for these communities to understand that a hunting accident or a fall could cause an injury, it was not so easy. understand the nature of the intrinsic malformations of the individual, generated during pregnancy, childbirth or due to a mutation genetics. Therefore, these communities had to adapt to this reality, just as they had to adapt to the reality of injuries and accidents.

It does not seem, therefore, that the first human communities despised or abandoned group members who showed signs of disability., both physical and mental. On the contrary, everything points to the fact that the entire group turned to them and took care of them to ensure their survival. This is the only way to understand the discovery of skeletons like Nandy who, without the help of his relatives, would not have been able to survive.