Your femur, really!

Your femur is that long bone inside your thigh that goes from your hip joint to your knee joint and is critical in all aspects of walking, running, dancing, etc. Of course, all your bones are important and have evolved for specific purposes. However, the femur has a very special place in the history of man.

According to Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist, the femur marks the beginning of civilization. What do I mean by civilization? I mean the presence of relationship and the ability to care for another in a way that keeps us connected. As humans, we learn to care for one another. If you thought it was natural, then just keep reading. Caring is not automatic. We learn to care. Now if you had asked me what is the best mark of the beginning of civilization, I would have said the wheel. So many things change with the wheel. People and goods can move faster and travel farther. Transport can go for a longer time. All types of terrain can be conquered. Heavy goods can be brought into place for building. Wouldn’t you think that the wheel is a better choice than a bone?
Of course, it isn’t the bone itself. The key is what happened to it at some point in time. In the early history of man, when a person broke their femur, they could not walk and would be left behind to die of starvation or be eaten by whatever animal happened by. The hunter with the broken femur would die where they lay. That vulnerability to wild beasts, other humans, and the elements of nature was a sign of the organization of the culture. If no one cared to protect you, then relationship did not exist.

Margaret Mead tells the story of a femur being found in a dig and showing signs of healing and repair. For that to happen another person had to care and carry the injured one with the broken leg to safety, bind the leg, and provide food and shelter. That is an act of helping and caring about another. That caring is the first sign of civilization.

For whom do you care? When you break your femur, who will carry you to safety, provide the splint, bring you food and water, and keep watch over you?

Our ability to care about another has not always been present. When I think about that truth, I am both curious and awed. Who cared for that person with the broken femur? What was their relationship? Why did the one take such care of the other? What can we learn from realizing that care was not always a part of being human? And then the more gruesome thought: could we ever return to that primitive sense of abandoning the wounded and not caring about what happens to them?