The Science of Anatomy: A historical timeline

umans have long been interested in the form and structure of living things.The focus on anatomy in the ancient world began as a way to determine the nature of the soul. 1 Ancient anatomical drawings and sculptures have been found in caves in Western Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia; while the exact dating of such artefacts is uncertain, some are at least 25,000 years old. 2 Regardless of how crude some of these illustrations are, they represent evidence that ancient artists had some knowledge of the formation of muscles and viscera.