[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

    • Tomatoes [they/them]@beehaw.org
      5·
      11 months 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.

      • SomeDude@feddit.de
        29·
        11 months 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·
          11 months 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.