Years ago, a student asked anthropologist Margaret Mead what she thought was the first sign of civilization in a Culture.
The student expected Mead to talk about hooks, earthenware pots, or millstones.
But she did not, Mead said instead that “the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a broken and then healed femur.”
She explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die.
You cannot run away from danger, go to the river for a drink or look for food.
You are meat for predatory beasts that prowl around you.
No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
A broken femur that has healed is proof that someone took the time to be with the one who fell, bandaged his wound, took him to a safe place and helped him recover.
Mead said that “helping someone else in difficulty is the precise point at which civilization begins.”
That is what being civilized is all about.