Archeologists from the Austrian Archaeological Institute (OAI) have discovered a rare foot and lower leg prosthesis dating to the 6th century A.D. at the archaeological site of Hemmaberg, near the village of Globasnitz, Carinthia, southern Austria. Several churches were built on the hill in the late Roman, early medieval period and was a popular center of pilgrimage. There are several burial grounds associated with the site, one of which is a small cemetery of 29 graves from the Frankish period between 536 and around 600 A.D. It was in this cemetery that the skeletal remains of an adult male between the age of 35 and 50 with a missing lower left leg was discovered in 2009.

He was buried with a scramasax and a pennanular brooch in a grave next to the northern wall of the church. The skeleton is in excellent condition, intact except for the missing left foot and bottom of the left tibia and fibula. Where the missing bones would have been archaeologists found a circular iron band just under three inches in diameter. Two small iron rivets closed the band and decayed remains of wooden slats inside the ring were fixed to the ring with four iron nails. The shortened ends of the left tibia and fibia have dark stains that may be all that’s left of whatever organic material, probably wood or leather, that connected the prosthesis to the leg. The wood remnants and the position of the band in the grave indicate the device may have been a wooden leg with the iron band on the bottom.

Osteological investigation revealed the man had major dental health issues, with cavities throughout his mouth, and he sustained a broken nose that healed before his death. Evidence of arthritis was found throughout this body, but particularly in his shoulders, hips, left knee and wrist, and spine. He also had rotator cuff disease in his left shoulder. The left foot and the ends of the left tibia and fibula were missing entirely, providing clear evidence of amputation, and small circular holes are likely an indication of infection of the remaining lower leg bones.

To try to determine how long the man survived following the amputation, Binder and her colleagues turned to the X-rays, as cut marks on bone can disappear as soon as two weeks after an amputation procedure. The X-rays showed significant changes in the bone density of the femur, tibia, and fibula on the left side of the body as compared to the non-amputated right side. But osteoarthritis in the left knee suggests the man was indeed still using his left leg following the amputation, with the assistance of a prosthesis.

Because he was buried near the church — of the 29 burials, his was the closest to the church wall — he must have been a high status individual. That status is confirmed by the grave goods, which while not uncommon in Germanic burials from late antiquity, are unique among the Hemmaberg burials. His right and left hip joints show tell-tale signs of regular horseback riding. The muscle attachment sites of hip and knee and the osteoarthritis of the spine also indicate the man spent a lot of time riding horses. He also has a healed injury on his right tibia — a huge hematoma — that was likely caused by blunt trauma. Wounds of this kind are commonly found when men on horseback are attacked by men on foot.

The oldest known surviving example of a prosthetic device is a wood and leather big toe replacement found in Thebes on the mummy of Tabaketenmut It dates to around 1065–710 B.C. and shows signs of wear so we know Tabaketenmut walked on it in life; it wasn’t added by the embalmers after death.

There’s textual evidence of prosthetics in antiquity. Herodotus (484–425 B.C.) tells the story in Book Nine of the Histories of Hegesistratus who cuts off half his foot to escape imprisonment and fashions “a foot of wood” to wear after he heals. Legendary or not (probably the former), the story indicates prosthetics were known in 5th century Greece. Pliny’s Natural History (Book 7, Chapter 29) recounts the exploits of 3rd century B.C. Roman general Marcus Sergius, hero of the Second Punic War, who fought through a great many grievous wounds, including the loss of his right hand which deterred him not one bit. “He had a right hand made of iron, and attached to the stump, after which he fought a battle, and raised the siege of Cremona, defended Placentia, and took twelve of the enemy’s camps in Gaul.”

Archaeological evidence from classical antiquity, however, is very thin on the ground. In the 19th century, a prosthetic lower leg made of a wooden core covered in sheets of bronze was unearthed from a Roman burial in Capua dating to around 300 B.C. Unfortunately it no longer exists — it was bought by the Royal College of Surgeons in London and destroyed in the Blitz in 1941 — and any human remains found with it were not recorded so there’s no evidence of wear on the leg or stress on the bones that can confirm it was a functional prosthetic limb rather than a post-mortem addition for aesthetic purposes.

Only three other archaeological prosthetics are known until the 16th century: a leather and wood foot found in a 5-7th century A.D. burial in Switzerland (probably not used in life), a bronze foot found in a 7th-8th century burial in Germany of limited use at best, and the iron and wood prosthetic from the 6th century found in Hemmaberg. That’s why it’s such a significant find, because surviving ancient prosthetic are so rare and skeletal remains that can tell us something about how the person who wore the device and how it was used are rarer still.

Archaeologists from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) have discovered what they believe to be the site of a bloody battle fought by Julius Caesar against the Tencteri and Usipetes tribes in 55 B.C. The site is at the confluence of the Maas (Meuse) and Waal rivers about 75 miles inland near modern-day Kessel, in the southern Netherlands province of Brabant. It’s the earliest known battlefield discovered in the Netherlands.

Archaeological remains are rich in the area, unearthed for decades by amateurs and now collected at Amsterdam’s Allard Pierson Museum. The discoveries strongly suggested a significant violent event took place there in antiquity. Between 1975 and 1995 many late Iron Age weapons and artifacts were found there during dredging operations on the Kessel side of the Waal — 20 iron swords, spearheads, a cavalry helmet of Gallic origin that is the oldest ever found in the Netherlands, Germanic belt buckles, cloak brooches — as well bones from more than 100 individuals. The weapons and artifacts stylistically date the 1st century B.C., but only recently has radiocarbon analysis of the skeletal remains confirmed they date to the same Late Iron Age period. Osteological analysis of the bones show clear and copious sings of cutting injuries caused by swords and penetrating wounds caused by spears.

Stable isotope analysis of the tooth enamel from three individuals unearthed at the site confirm that they were not native the Meuse-Waal area but came from elsewhere. The Tencteri and Usipetes weren’t locals; they were Germanic tribes on the move, pressured by the Suevi people encroaching on their home territories to cross the Rhine and migrate west. The isotope analysis is ongoing and additional tests should reveal with more precision where they spent their childhoods.

The Kessel skeletal remains are mainly of men, but there are also women and children among them, all of whom died at the same time in what archaeologists believe was a single violent event rather than a series of events when the dead were buried in the same place. It seems there was a battle followed by a massacre after which the bodies of the dead were thrown in the Maas riverbed, as were their weapons. Some of the swords were found to have been deliberately folded or bent, a common ritual practice symbolizing the destruction of the object before burial.

Caesar wrote about a battle that fits this bill in Book IV De Bello Gallico.

The following winter (this was the year in which Cn. Pompey and M. Crassus were consuls [55 B.C.]), those Germans [called] the Usipetes, and likewise the Tenchtheri, with a great number of men, crossed the Rhine, not far from the place at which that river discharges itself into the sea. The motive for crossing [that river] was, that having been for several years harassed by the Suevi, they were constantly engaged in war, and hindered from the pursuits of agriculture.

The Usipetes and Tencteri in turn drove the Belgic Menapii tribe from their homes by tricking them into thicking they were leaving only to double back and catch the Menapii unawares. The Germanic tribes killed the Menapii, seized their ships and used them to cross the Rhine (possibly the Waal which is a distributary of the Rhine) where they wintered comfortably on Menapii supplies.

Caesar heard of this and became concerned that the movement west of the Usipetes and Tencteri would get the Gauls all het up. Indeed, his scouts discovered that Gallic peoples were already beginning to deal with the Germans, appeasing them with money and valuables and drawing them further into Gaul itself. The Usipetes and Tencteri attempted to negotiate with Caesar, offering their fighting skills in exchange for being allowed to keep the lands they’d just taken, for new lands or for support against the Suevi who were driving them from their homeland.

Caesar wasn’t keen but agreed to a temporary truce while they worked out a possible resettlement option. The Germans panicked at the sight of Roman cavalry and attacked anyway. Caesar, now considering the truce ended by their treachery, put his game face on.

Having marshalled his army in three lines, and in a short time performed a march of eight miles, he arrived at the camp of the enemy before the Germans could perceive what was going on; who being suddenly alarmed by all the circumstances, both by the speediness of our arrival and the absence of their own officers, as time was afforded neither for concerting measures nor for seizing their arms, are perplexed as to whether it would be better to lead out their forces against the enemy, or to defend their camp, or seek their safety by flight. Their consternation being made apparent by their noise and tumult, our soldiers, excited by the treachery of the preceding day, rushed into the camp: such of them as could readily get their arms, for a short time withstood our men, and gave battle among their carts and baggage wagons; but the rest of the people, [consisting] of boys and women (for they had left their country and crossed the Rhine with all their families) began to fly in all directions; in pursuit of whom Caesar sent the cavalry.

The Germans when, upon hearing a noise behind them, [they looked and] saw that their families were being slain, throwing away their arms and abandoning their standards, fled out of the camp, and when they had arrived at the confluence of the Meuse and the Rhine, the survivors despairing of further escape, as a great number of their countrymen had been killed, threw themselves into the river and there perished, overcome by fear, fatigue, and the violence of the stream. Our soldiers, after the alarm of so great a war, for the number of the enemy amounted to 430,000, returned to their camp, all safe to a man, very few being even wounded.

Caesar’s numbers are exaggerated. Archaeologists believe the real number of Tencteri and Usipetes was somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 and he couldn’t have killed them all. Plutarch says that there were survivors who were taken in by the German Sugambri tribe, much to Caesar’s irritation.

So, is the Kessel battlefield the one Caesar describes in De Bello Gallico? The evidence of a battle having taken place there between Gauls or Romans and Germans in the 1st century B.C. is strong. Whether it’s the specific battle described by Caesar, that’s more challenging to determine. I think they’re relying a little heavily on the presence of slaughtered civilians matching Caesar’s description of the battle’s aftermath. It seems to me you’d need coins, legion references or maybe remains of the camps to narrow down the time and combatants more precisely before you can comfortably claim, as the VU press materials do, that this is the “first time that the presence of Caesar and his troops on Dutch soil has been explicitly shown.”

The finds are currently on display in the Allard Pierson Museum and will be exhibited at least through next month.