In 2014, a 15-year-old boy injected mercury into his arm because he wanted to become a Wolverine. It was obviously not a good idea. Because nobody can be like Wolverine! Well, also for other reasons. In addition, in reality, there has been someone like this in history Super Hero. It wasn’t exactly like the Marvel character, but it was something similar. A medieval wolverinel.
His story was described in 2018, in a study of Journal of Anthropological Science. It was a Lombard skeleton, found and studied by scientists from the Sapienza University, from Rome.
At first glance he looked like just another warrior, who had been buried along with his weapons, like others. But, in his case, much evidence points to the fact that the knife that rested on his body was much more than a weapon. It was him arm substitute that he had lost years before his death. A prosthetic that turned him into a kind of Wolverine. Yes, it’s just a nice comparison, but that doesn’t mean the story doesn’t stop being interesting. Let’s see what is known about her.
The story of the medieval Wolverine
The remains of the medieval Wolverine appeared in a Lombard necropolis north of italy. The Lombards were a Germanic people who ruled much of the Italian peninsula from the year 568 to 774.
Therefore, there are numerous burials of this type throughout the country. In this there were hundreds of bodies, many of them buried with their weapons, since it was a very warlike people. There was also a headless horse and several greyhounds. But even with the headless steed there was something that caught more attention. A human skeleton with a peculiarity that the others did not have.
He was an older man for the time, with an age between 40 and 50 years old, to which they had cut off his right arm, approximately at the height of the middle of the forearm. The amputation had been caused by blunt force trauma, but it was not possible to know the reason. It could have been either a surgical removal or the result of war wounds. What did seem clear is that it had happened long before his death, since the cut bone was in an advanced state of healing.
His knife also drew attention. Many of the skeletons in the necropolis had one in their grave. However, it was normal for it to rest on the sides of the body. In his case it was on him, just off the end of what must have been the stump. And there was more. Next to the knife could be seen a kind of hood with a buckle and worn leather straps by the passing of the years. This could indicate that the man covered his stump with the hood and attached the knife to it through the straps hooked into the buckle. I would have a hand replaced by a knife. All of this is what makes him something similar to a medieval Wolverine.
The key is in the teeth
Assuming all this with only the objects found in the tomb is complicated. If they reached such a conclusion, it is because, in reality, there were more clues. For example, one of the most important is found in the teeth.
Investigators saw that the man’s teeth were badly worn. As explained in ScienceAlert, had one great loss of enamel and a bone lesion on the right side, which seems to be related to the fact that he had used that part of his mouth so much that the dental pulp had been worn away. Furthermore, this had led him to contract a tooth infection.
It may seem that scientists were going off the rails with this, but nothing could be further from the truth. Those injuries explain the possibility that he used a prosthesis, since he could have repeatedly used his teeth to tighten the straps.
On the other hand, he had developed in his shoulder bone a c-shaped ridge which could indicate that he regularly held his shoulder up, with his arm outstretched. Also to tighten the straps. And the only straps in the grave were between the stump and the knife. It’s impossible to know for sure if he used the knife as a prosthetic, but there’s every reason to think so. And it is true that they were not claws, but a sad knife, but we are talking about the Middle Ages, surely it imposed the same. Also that it was accidental, rather than a mutation. And it is true that he was not immortal, but he lived a long time for his time. Especially considering that he suffered an amputation that, in the era before antibiotics, could have given him a lethal infection. The said. A whole medieval Wolverine.