I don’t know how or when she broke her leg; all I know is she miraculously survived this devastating injury. It wasn’t a simple fracture of the tibia or fibula. Somehow she sustained a midshaft femur fracture, which is not only life-threatening, but incredibly painful. It was a serious break. The broken ends of bone were knocked out of alignment, ending up side by side; the kind of fracture that can only be corrected surgically.
What force could have caused such an
injury? During my years as a firefighter-paramedic, femur fractures were
usually the result of an “auto vs. pedestrian” or a serious crash. It takes a
lot of force to break the largest, strongest bone in the body.
But her injury was not from a car,
nor from a crash, for this woman lived over seven thousand years ago along the east
coast of Florida. Her skeleton was found among the ancient assemblage known as
Windover, a site that has yielded a wealth of information about prehistoric
Floridians.
Her bones speak of a hard life. The
leg injury was but one of the maladies that plagued her and despite the
fracture, she managed to survive for years afterward. The ragged bone ends
eventually mended, a heavy knot of callus sealing them to each other, resulting
in a shortened limb and a lifetime of limping that would have made her
difficult life that much more challenging.
We can tell a lot about her through her
well-preserved skeleton, buried, along with 167 others, in the base of a small
pond near present-day Titusville. This mortuary pond held the bundled remains
of a people who roamed the Florida peninsula thousands of years ago. Their
bodies remained tucked beneath the surface until their accidental discovery in
1982.
Imagine this: It’s mid-August in
Florida and the temperature is hovering around ninety-five degrees. The humidity has
settled like a dense fog as the sun sets on this sweltering day. The mosquitos
are rising in droves from the swamp as they seek out any bit of exposed flesh, and a late thunderstorm has left behind a stifling stillness. Oh, and I almost
forgot… you’re lying on a mat, writhing in pain from a fractured femur.
Broken bones weren’t the only health
challenges these ancient Floridians faced. You should see their teeth.
Envision your mouth if you’d never
brushed or flossed (even worse, imagine your breath). But cavities and plaque
were the least of their troubles. Attrition, or wearing down of the teeth, was
rampant, as was tooth loss. If you were lucky enough to survive into your forties,
the teeth you managed to hold onto were typically worn to the gum line from
years of eating gritty, acidic foods and using your jaws as tools. Many people also
suffered from infections. Abscesses burrowed into the bones of
their jaws, inflaming them with pus and causing full-blown sepsis if the
infection entered the bloodstream.
And speaking of infection… their
mouths weren’t the only body parts affected. You may not realize it, but
infection wreaks havoc on bone. It causes the outer layer of bone, or periosteum, to become inflamed and can even wheedle its way into the marrow cavity, where
it can spread unchecked throughout the body. 
And think how demanding their lives
were. Hungry? Go hunt down your dinner or gather it from the forest. Thirsty?
Trek to the nearest water source and hope it’s not infected with parasites.
Need shelter? Better get to work on that thatch hut, which means gathering
enough palm fronds to hold off a raging thunderstorm. Need to pee or poo? Get
far enough from camp to avoid contaminating the soil you’ll be sleeping upon.
In other words, each of life’s
necessities required work. The result? Plenty of wear and tear on the joints.
And as the arthritis advanced, each and every chore became that much harder,
requiring that much more effort.
We have it made. Modern life is
infused with ways to make life easier. Cars, grocery stores, washing machines,
and refrigerators enable us to drive, shop, clean, and store food. Not to
mention life’s little luxuries, like clothes, bug spray, and toilet paper.
So the next time you gripe about the
cable being out or the Internet being too slow, take a breath and think about
those of our distant past. What they would have given for one day in our shoes.
If you'd like to read more about the fascinating Windover site, click here:
