[Picture of text that reads:]
Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.

But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough to heal.

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken the time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said

    • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
      375·
      1 year ago

      It’s a meme in the original sense of the word meme:

      an element of a culture or system of behavior passed from one individual to another by imitation or other nongenetic means.

      I think we should share those memes too.

      • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netEnglish
        19·
        1 year ago

        I think there could be a place for that, but the sidebar for this community does say ‘When you need a laugh’, so maybe we could create another community for that kind of meme?

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
          42·
          1 year ago

          Or just change the sidebar description? But this is something for the mods of this community to decide. If they think this thread is off topic they can easily delete or lock it.

    • samus12345@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      1 year ago

      Also, she never said that and humans aren’t the only animals who care for their injured. Pretty much a fail all around.

  • vettnerk
    813·
    1 year ago

    The takeaway, i guess, is that US healthcare only counts as civilized to those with money.

    • AnticorpEnglish
      9·
      1 year ago

      They’ll fix your broken bone, they just won’t provide any rehab if you don’t have insurance.

    • Mammal@lemmy.worldEnglish
      37·
      1 year ago

      Very true!

      “Me first! Fuck you! Every man for himself!” is a terrible basis for a society.

      • niktemadur@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        Also most are armchair weekend libertarians, nurturing their thousands and one prejudices.
        “Libertarianism for me (muh guns! freydum!), not for thee (minority equality, gay equality, women’s equality, etc.).”

    • SkyNTP@lemmy.ca
      71·
      1 year ago

      Also, you know, people having invented bone healing, as opposed to entire species arriving naturally to bone healing through evolution over millions of years because it’s a practical thing in the wild to have.

      • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
        1·
        10 months ago

        Human exceptionalism sets humans apart from nature, it’s a belief that denies that we too are a part of the ecosystem and dependant on it, which leads to a lack of care for said ecosystem, which will lead to an inevitable collapse of said ecosystem (it can still collapse if we care for it, but if we don’t, then it’s inevitable and faster). Which will lead to huge problems for humans,because contrary to the belief of human exceptionalism, we are not exceptional, we are still very much dependant on nature and our environment.

        I did a quick google search and there’s loads of literature on the dangers of the human exceptionalism belief, so if you want to read more, just Google “dangers of human exceptionalism”.

        I consider myself a smart monkey, but it’s not because I’m smart, that I’m no longer a monkey.

  • psivchaz@reddthat.com
    28·
    1 year ago

    Me: Reads this and feels temporarily good.

    Comments: This isn’t a meme, it’s fake, healthcare is expensive, murder exists.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
      8·
      1 year ago

      Maybe the person with the broken leg got it from jumping off a cliff to kill themself, but survived, and was kept alive by another because they were their favorite sex slave.

    • j_roby@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      You pretty much summed up my entire experience with this post. Thank you. I see you, and appreciate you.

    • Tomatoes [they/them]@beehaw.org
      5·
      1 year ago

      I was gonna say, members of a group caring for one another is a sign of a social species. Like, we have a sample size of one species becoming “civilized” but I can’t imagine a civilization developing in a species that isn’t social. But there are plenty of present and historical examples of this kind of social behavior without civilization.

      • ProcurementCat@feddit.de
        27·
        1 year ago

        You should’ve used the second Google result: https://www.sapiens.org/culture/margaret-mead-femur/

        To start, there is no reliable evidence that Mead said what has been attributed to her. Internet sleuths have traced the earliest reference to this anecdote to the 1980 book Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, in which the surgeon Paul Brand writes that he was “reminded of a lecture given by the anthropologist Margaret Mead, who spent much of her life studying primitive cultures.”

        But when Mead was asked directly in an interview, “When does a culture become a civilization?,” her documented response was very different. “Looking at the past,” Mead replied, “we have called societies civilizations when they have had great cities, elaborate division of labor, some form of keeping records. These are the things that have made civilization.”

        • ZzyzxRoad@sh.itjust.works
          52·
          1 year ago

          The author is challenging the attribution to Mead, as well as the definition of civilization that is used. They concede only a few paragraphs down that there are many cases of healed fractures found by anthropologists which imply that people took care of one another, as well as there having been interpersonal violence.

          I wouldn’t say that the entire thing is false just because it’s been turned into a falsely attributed quote.

    • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
      622·
      1 year ago

      The fact that you spelt that with a “z” suggests you wouldn’t know much about helping others in civilisation 😂

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
        151·
        1 year ago

        i’m swedish, why do i have to spell like a wretched englishman? it’s bad enough living so close to their hive of scum and villainy

        • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
          28·
          1 year ago

          Ah sorry, didn’t realise things had got so bad in Abbaland that you converted to English (Simplified) 😂

    • angrystego@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 year ago

      Well, I guess it’s all animals that don’t develop the first sign of civilization as defined in the quote. Congratulations, geese, you got over the threshold!

  • Umbrias@beehaw.org
    51·
    1 year ago

    So it’s cute and could have some relative usefulness but there are some problems with this mythical anecdote:

    • animals heal broken legs all the time. It’s not a guaranteed death sentence, if it were there actually wouldn’t even be a way to repair it at all. See: brain, lungs, heart. All things which can very slightly repair themselves from minor injuries, not catastrophic ones.

    • bipeds are worse off, but quadrupeds can generally manage, poorly, with only three legs. There are exceptions, but that’s one of the main benefits of having four legs.

    • a broken femur can already be a death sentence regardless of early medicine. Very easy to bleed out, the actual maiming is the least of your worries.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
      101·
      1 year ago

      I’m on the fence.

      I’m in the ‘social media microblogging’ is not a meme camp as well.

      However I find the message in this one worth distributing, which is technically what a meme is all about

  • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de
    23·
    1 year ago

    I mean I’m not saying I could, (also not saying I couldn’t) but also isn’t it conceivable that a person managed to crawl back to their cave where they had food stored, bound their own leg, and was lucky enough to avoid infection? Nothing about a healed leg implicitly demands intervention from other beings.

    • Madlaine@feddit.de
      9·
      1 year ago

      They must have had food stored for a few weeks to months, in a time before preservation techniques.