bhubaneswar people in ancient odisha had sound knowledge of indigenous medicine and healing practices said experts on sunday after a weeklong anthropological analysis of the 3500yearold human skeleton which was discovered at banga excavation site last month a team of experts including prof s walimbe and veena mushrif tripathy from deccan college pune studied the skeleton at the anthropology department of utkal university here the skeleton shed light on the individual and culture of that period the man had died at the age of around 3540 years and was healthy he was around 5 feet and 7 inches tall and had a fracture on left forearm which had healed completely the successful treatment of the injury indicated that traditional healing was in vogue at that time said walimbe paleopathology test revealed that the injury was accidental the secondary infection if any to the open wound was successfully treated an xray of the fractured bones will be done to study the healing process he said experts also revealed that the skeletons feet were missing the feet of the person were chopped off after death probably due to some kind of belief prevalent at that period similar practice was also found at the historic site of inam gaon in maharashtra walimbe maintained the skeletal sample will be sent for possible dna extraction to centre for cellular and molecular biology hyderabad besides absolute carbon dating will be done to know the exact year it belonged to and paleobotanical and paleozoological studies for an insight into the food habits of the population said kishore basa of the department of anthropology utkal university a team of archaeologists headed by r k mohanty of deccan college in pune and basa started excavation of the historic site in january this is the second a human skeleton was recovered from any archaeological site in the state pottery copper fragments stone artifacts animal bones hearth and living floor of a house of a chalcolithic age habitation were also dug up