Mending the Character

Here is a fascinating article on the treatment of fractures in Iron Age Briton. Too often we see our ancestors as skin wearing half men who walk hunched over, have no concept of being clean, stink, eat half cooked food and are incapable of putting together imaginative thought.

But it seems that iron age man was quite apt at healing bones, more so it seems than the civilized Romans that followed them. Over 270 samples were studied and most showed proper setting and healing, with only one begin deformed. Under the Roman period deformed sets increased, not due to to the sophistication of the treatment, but probably due to the hustle and bustle of daily life that cut into rehabilitation.

Read on. 

So next time that frost giant crushes your leg with is massive hammer, never fear, bone setting was a tried to true practice!