Mastodawn

JB Jun 24, 2023

"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 for the bone to heal.
A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken 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."
We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized.

Rob Bos Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal
It's a great story but I've read a few times now that there's no solid evidence she said it, apparently. I wonder who did.
@jai_oh

@rbos @pinskal @jai_oh Just to add that there is plenty of evidence that wildlife suffer femur breaks which then heal, so the whole premise is a little bit wrong anyway. Something like 70% of foxes that were 5yrs or older had healed breaks (data from Prof Stephen Harris - Urban Foxes 2001 edition)

Rolf Blijleven 🔻Jun 23, 2023

@Words @rbos @pinskal @jai_oh When geese migrate and one gets injured and can't continu, a few others stay with him or her, until things get better.

Some of the strong ones who reach the destination ahead of the others, fly back to guide the ones who aren't there yet to the best route.

You'll remember what Mahatma Ghandi said when some journalist asked what he thought about western civilisation.

"I think it would be a very good idea."

@RolfBly @rbos @pinskal @jai_oh We constantly underestimate the socialising of animals. Geese are amazing at protecting their young so this doesn't surprise me.

🥥 Tucker Carlson's Nuts 🥥Jun 23, 2023

@Words @rbos @pinskal @jai_oh
🥥 In my younger days, Words, I spent a lot of time and effort hunting urban foxes. 🥥

Andreas K Jun 24, 2023

@Words @rbos @pinskal @jai_oh
Broken femurs?

The initial story does not speak about some random bones, but femurs.

Which again is questionable because a broken femur is no joke today, it can cause shock due to internal bleeding.

A broken femur today requires:
potentially immediate medical attention (if it bleeds internally)
surgery
and 6-8 weeks minimum recovery time.

yes, it's possible that early humans might have survived these with much care. Chances even in the best case, not so good.

CrazyMyra Jun 23, 2023

@rbos @pinskal @jai_oh

Quote Investigator casts a lot of doubt on it being something Mead said, particularly as the quote surfaced only after she was dead.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/07/25/femur/?amp=1

Quote Origin: A Healed Femur Is the Earliest Sign of True Civilization – Quote Investigator®

Liz Ellis She/Her🌳Jun 23, 2023

@OutOnTheMoors @rbos @pinskal @jai_oh
It may be apocryphal (and it's kinda silly anyway) but there is fossilised evidence from the middle pleistocene age, of children born with severe congenital defects surviving for a number years, so we can still feel a bit positive about humanity.

CrazyMyra Jun 23, 2023

@LizEllisPhD @rbos @pinskal @jai_oh I agree - just doubt the Mead accreditation.

🥥 Tucker Carlson's Nuts 🥥Jun 23, 2023

@OutOnTheMoors @rbos @pinskal @jai_oh 🥥 In the beginning teh internets helped dispell inaccurate attributions of famous quotations.
Then teh internets were the source of many inaccurate & highly implausible memes about famous people saying things they never said.
Nowadays, chatbots are generating stuff that sounds quotable but no actual human has ever said it.
There's got to be some kind of principle at work here & I don't think it has anything to do with the advancement of civilization. 🥥

Jon Pinter Jun 28, 2023

@OutOnTheMoors @rbos @jai_oh As has been documented by over 50 federated members she did not say it, also over 50 federated members have documented the quotes unfairness and inaccuracy about animals. I origally posted it because I liked the center of the story, kindness to one another is key to civilization.
Many federated members have acknowledged that she did not say it, that it is unfair to animals and that it is a great story and the center of the story is key.
Jon

CrazyMyra Jun 28, 2023

@pinskal @rbos @jai_oh
Arguing with people online is stupid. - Confucius

Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water Jun 30, 2023

@pinskal @OutOnTheMoors @rbos @jai_oh Even if it were the recounting of a dream of a fictional Margaret Mead in a sci-fi novel, it would STILL have significance & importance. It's quite clear that it's not saying that animals don't have compassion for one another. It's just saying that licking a broken femur is unlikely to fix it. So it's saying that civilization is both the technical capacity to heal another & having the emotional bandwidth & social cohesion to care for others even at your own detriment. Something doesn't have to be accurately cited, factually accurate & immune to the decay of facts to hold power & meaning.

CrazyMyra Jun 30, 2023

@sentient_water @pinskal @rbos @jai_oh I refer you to my Confucius quote

Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water Jun 30, 2023

@OutOnTheMoors @pinskal @rbos @jai_oh Yeah yours was much more pithy.

CrazyMyra Jun 30, 2023

@sentient_water @pinskal @rbos @jai_oh I'm wary of misattributed quotes because they can - often accidentally - create mistaken beliefs about what people thought. Read Mead and you're not going to find anything in support of this theory. She thought "civilsation" started with the imposition of power structures.

Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water Jun 30, 2023

@OutOnTheMoors @pinskal @rbos @jai_oh In general I agree. But whoever wrote that had a point. I've not read any Margaret Mead & barely know anything about her. Still someone wrote that statement & that anonymous author grokked something fundamentally important about being human. I always try to check my sources even for just a quote & yet it's NEVER straightforward. Often some variation of the same quote has been said by numerous people over the span of centuries.

If the attribution was changed from Mead to Anon I think that would fix it

CrazyMyra Jun 30, 2023

@sentient_water @pinskal @rbos @jai_oh Definitely

Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water Jun 30, 2023

@OutOnTheMoors @pinskal @rbos @jai_oh So you don't recommend Margaret Mead then?

CrazyMyra Jun 30, 2023

@sentient_water @pinskal @rbos @jai_oh I don't agree with some of her opinions, but I always recommend reading widely on a subject - and that includes reading experts you're likely to end up disagreeing with. It's not like this quote is being attributed to Ayn Rand

Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water Jun 30, 2023

@OutOnTheMoors @pinskal @rbos @jai_oh I've just read her Wikipedia page & irrespective of any missteps she made she sounds like a remarkable woman. A bisexual, anthropologist, feminist, global explorer & scientist (a term I recently found out was created to describe only women who studied science).

Glad I did to be honest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead?wprov=sfla1

Margaret Mead - Wikipedia

CrazyMyra Jun 30, 2023

@sentient_water @pinskal @rbos @jai_oh She was. I'm old and her opinions carried weight when I was growing up. Seems sad she's being "remembered" for this when there's so much that's interesting that she did say.

Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water Jun 30, 2023

@OutOnTheMoors @pinskal @rbos @jai_oh Yeah for sure but it sent me down a fascinating, little rabbit hole. My former girlfriend & current friend was an anthropologist & I am sure that's where I heard of Mead.

I'm always especially in awe of women, minorities, & those with disabilities who thrive & do more than most despite all the odds. I mean she was doing this long before the "revolutions" of the 60's & 70's.

Kudos.

Resuna Jun 24, 2023

@rbos @pinskal @jai_oh Also, we do find animal skeletons with pretty terrible breaks that have healed, and we see supporting behavior in animals, and really civilization isn't just social behavior... it's more the art of living in cities: for a species that has evolved to live in small groups where everyone knows each other, suddenly having to continually deal with strangers without killing them.

Jon Pinter Jun 28, 2023

@rbos @jai_oh As has been documented by over 50 federated members she did not say it, also over 50 federated members have documented the quotes unfairness and inaccuracy about animals. I origally posted it because I liked the center of the story, kindness to one another is key to civilization.
Many federated members have acknowledged that she did not say it, that it is unfair to animals and that it is a great story and the center of the story is key.
Jon

AmiW Streetart ❄️Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal ❤️

mark Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal I'm not sure the part about the animal kingdom is quite right, base on a three-legged squirrel we have in our tree, but it's almost certainly true for most badly injured bipeds, so I'm buying the argument

Dan Piponi Jun 23, 2023

@markrvickers @pinskal And I've watched deer running around with broken legs, maybe a little behind the other deer, but still surviving. We inherited the ability to repair broken legs from our pre-human ancestors who survived long enough to hand on their genes. But, as you say, it's tough on us bipeds.

D's lack of faith in humanity Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal Conversely, one of the signs of a collapsing civilization is when you let people die from preventable causes because of economic, social, and demographic reasons.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0501-preventable-deaths.html

CDC Newsroom

Press releases, advisories, telebriefings, transcripts and archives.

CDC

Teri Yaki 🖌️🎹🚲💻Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal Interesting point, so I think we are at the end of civilisation.

Les capsules du prof Lutz Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal I've read something similar, but for someone in the primitive past (-500 kyr) who had marks of debilitating hip osteoarthritis that forbidden him/her to walk _for years_ but had been taken care of by the community.

maybe here: http://www.hominides.com/html/actualites/homme-prehistorique-compassion-humanite-elvis-0357.php

Un homme préhistorique qui s'occupe des anciens - Hominidés

xs4me2 Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal Great words,let them be remembered…

Anatisadalia 🐞🌺Jun 23, 2023

MandolinMcGee Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal Feels too good to be true.

"...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.”

https://www.sapiens.org/culture/margaret-mead-femur/

Did Margaret Mead Think a Healed Femur Was the Earliest Sign of Civilization?

An anthropologist digs into the origins of a popular story attributed to Margaret Mead about the original sign of civilization.

SAPIENS

Jon Pinter Jun 28, 2023

@MandolinMcGee As has been documented by over 50 federated members she did not say it, also over 50 federated members have documented the quotes unfairness and inaccuracy about animals. I origally posted it because I liked the center of the story, kindness to one another is key to civilization.
Many federated members have acknowledged that she did not say it, that it is unfair to animals and that it is a great story and the center of the story is key.
Jon

elegantwino Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal Brilliant!

Yrmeek Jyls Ay Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal Interesting. Sauce?

Frank Inserra Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal This story, while popular, has been punctured by a number of researchers. This is one of them.
www.sapiens.org/culture/margar…

Did Margaret Mead Think a Healed Femur Was the Earliest Sign of Civilization?

An anthropologist digs into the origins of a popular story attributed to Margaret Mead about the original sign of civilization.

SAPIENS

Jon Pinter Jun 28, 2023

@finserra As has been documented by over 50 federated members she did not say it, also over 50 federated members have documented the quotes unfairness and inaccuracy about animals. I origally posted it because I liked the center of the story, kindness to one another is key to civilization.
Many federated members have acknowledged that she did not say it, that it is unfair to animals and that it is a great story and the center of the story is key.
Jon

Frank Inserra Jun 28, 2023

@pinskal I must have quoted it five times before I stumbled on some anthropology squib that ran it down. Often the best quotes (in substance) have questionable authorship, are folklore, or are misattributed. My favorite is "Some people feel the rain, others just get wet." This is often misattributed to Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, but it is (I think) from Roger Miller.

Cabeceo_Queen Jun 23, 2023

As a twenty-one year old student teacher I studied some of her work and was hooked. She saw things so clearly. She was my hero.

#socialanthropology
#teachertraining #sociology #globalanthropology

Rand Barthel Jun 29, 2023

@RhiMG,*s ,,

@pinskal b u8k

darksidecat Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal I never liked this claim much because 1) caring for the injured is a general social animal behavior-wolves do this, are wolves a society? Are shrews?
2) despite the lower survival rates, the rate of healed broken long bones isn't zero in non-social animals either https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27691945/

"Civilization" is an arbitrary colonial concept, all humans are social animals.

PREVALENCE OF HEALED LONG-BONE FRACTURES IN WILD CARNIVORES FROM THE NORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES - PubMed

Museum specimens representing 12 species of terrestrial carnivores from the northeastern United States were inspected for evidence of healed long-bone fractures. Of 413 individuals, 18 (4.4%) exhibited healed fractures. Thirteen (72.2%) occurred in hind limbs; five (27.8%) occurred in forelimbs. Mus …

PubMed

Kostyn Jun 23, 2023

@pinskal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYKSZE5m6kk (good thought, but not actually a Mead quote.)

Civilization and the Lies We Love

YouTube

Kostyn Jun 27, 2023

@pinskal @pluralistic youtube.com/watch?v=sYKSZE5m6kk (good thought, but not actually a Mead quote.)

Jon Pinter Jun 28, 2023

@kostyn @pluralistic As has been documented by over 50 federated members she did not say it, also over 50 federated members have documented the quotes unfairness and inaccuracy about animals. I origally posted it because I liked the center of the story, kindness to one another is key to civilization.
Many federated members have acknowledged that she did not say it, that it is unfair to animals and that it is a great story and the center of the story is key.
Jon

bodhidave Jun 24, 2023

A bit of an extension, but I'm reminded of a psychotherapy outcomes survey years ago that found clients' reports of being benefited by the therapy they received correlated most strongly not with the therapist's theoretical orientation (psychoanalytic, humanistic, behaviorist), but with whether or not the client experienced their therapist as a warm person. ❤️

Earthling Jun 24, 2023

If you have pets you know from your own experience that animals love, care and have empathy like humans do, except for GREED!

TopKnot Jun 24, 2023

Also, "Old School Cool" photo.

anitavondannen Jun 24, 2023

@pinskal Mead might know a lot about civilization, but not much about wild animals. They very well survive with a broken leg. They bolt off in the face of danger on three legs. If seen several deer with injuries or missing legs who survived years.

wondrng1 Jun 24, 2023

@pinskal — great post.

My spouse reminded me that non-human animals also sometimes care for each other.

Even humans. Like little 3-yo boy in 1996, who fell into gorilla pit, and was cradled by female gorilla until turning him over to zookeepers. (B/c he was unconscious, not crying/flailing? B/c gorilla was maternal, w/ her own baby on her back? B/c she was raised by humans as a baby?) https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/15-years-ago-today-gorilla-rescues-boy-who-fell-in-ape-pit/

15 Years Ago Today: Gorilla Rescues Boy Who Fell In Ape Pit

A boy, now 18 years old, owes his life to the maternal instincts of a gorilla at Brookfield Zoo.

CBS Chicago

Jon Pinter Jun 24, 2023

@wondrng1 cool story, thank you

@BegoniaArizona Jun 24, 2023

@pinskal that makes me happy to hear such intelligence and insight and compassion.

@pinskal by that logic the USA is "uncivilized" because healthcare isn't seen as a human rigjt but commodity.

Leszek Karlik Jun 24, 2023

This is a great story but she really should have talked to a paleontologist because animal fossils that have a healed broken femur do exist. We have a tendency to underestimate animals and their will to live.

(We still have archeological evidence of care over disabled and elderly people, it's just more complicated than "broken and healed femur")