Discovered fossilized bones serve as oldest evidence of surgery in Central Asia

A child's 4,000-year-old skull found in Uzbekistan has signs of trepanation, making it the oldest evidence of surgery in Central Asia on record, as well as one of the oldest across the whole continent.

The skeleton of the child, who died at about age 5, was unearthed in April and been buried in a single grave alongside the body of another child who died at about 3 years old, as LiveScience reports.

The excavation work was carried out by a joint mission between the University of Salento (Italy), Uzbek institutions, the Termez State University, and the Archaeological Institute of Samarkand. 

The skull has "clear signs of cranial trepanation" involving stone or bone tools, according to the researcher's statement. 

Trepanation was commonly practiced in ancient times, possibly as a treatment for conditions such as epilepsy, migraines, or behavioral disorders. However, the researchers noted that the “frontier between medicine and ritual” would have been far less clearly defined than it is today.

The discovery was made in the Northern Bactria region near the Afghan border and centered on the prehistoric settlement of Djarkutan. Researchers dated the grave to the late third millennium B.C. At the time, Djarkutan was a major urban center of the Oxus civilization, an Early Bronze Age culture that dominated much of Central Asia between roughly 2500 and 1500 B.C.

The ongoing research project examining the site and other aspects of the Oxus civilization began in 2024.

While evidence of ancient trepanation is relatively common in some parts of the world, the fact that the procedure was performed on such a young child has puzzled researchers, the team said.

By Nazrin Sadigova