Ancient surgical instruments were found in the monuments of Tagar Culture of the 4th - 3rd centuries B.C.

Novosibirsk archeologists found out that 2,5 thousand years ago surgeons in Southern Siberia carried out complicated surgical procedures, including cranial trepanation. Thus they had instruments which were unknown in Europe, the press service of the Novosibirsk State University reported.

"The surgeon of the end of the first millennium B.C. operated with a surgical blade for bone cutting, saws,  cutting instruments, tweezers, medical probes and a lancet, the analog of the modern scalpel. Most of these instruments are also functionally similar to those of the European surgeons of the same epoch. The only exception is the surgical saw, which was not known in Europe of that period", - the press service of Pavel Volkov, the leading researcher of the Archeology and Ethnography Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science quoted him.