PREHISTORIC TREPANNING. 535 



PREHISTORIC TREPANNING. 



ONE of the most remarkable revelations made of late years by 

 prehistoric archaeology relative to primitive man has been 

 that of the extent to which trepanning was practiced by the men 

 of the polished stone age — the men who erected the rude stone 

 monuments of which Stonehenge and Carnac are the highest ex- 

 pressions. 



In 1872 Dr. Prunieres first called attention to the fact that 

 among the interments of the neolithic age in the limestone cav- 

 erns of Lozere, and under the so-called dolmens, a certain num- 

 ber of skulls found had been surgically treated. Portions of the 

 skull had been removed, in many cases during life ; whereas others 

 had been trepanned after death. There could be no question but 

 that in many cases those who had been operated upon had sur- 

 vived the operation, as the reparative efforts of Nature were 

 marked. 



The matter was taken up by Dr. Broca, who published an 

 essay on the subject, which he had communicated to the Anthro- 

 pological Congress at Buda-Pesth in 1876. It has since been in- 

 vestigated by M. Nadaillac, and has been recently referred to by 

 Count d'Alviella in his Hibbert Lectures for 1891. 



A word first upon the race which practiced trepanning. As 

 far as can be ascertained, it entered Europe by the shores of the 

 Baltic from the Caucasus and Crimea, strewing the plains of 

 Pomerania, Hanover, and Groningen with their monuments, 

 erected out of the stones left by the rafts of ice that floated over 

 these submerged plains in the Glacial period. This race occupied 

 Denmark and Sweden, crossed into Great Britain, and has left its 

 remains in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the west of England, Dorset, 

 Wiltshire, and Kent. It entered France, made Brittany its strong- 

 hold, traced up the rivers to the central plateau of France, but 

 never occupied the upper waters of the Elbe, the Rhine, or the 

 Meuse, was never on the Danube at all, and, though it descended 

 from the central mountains of France to the Rhone, yet never 

 advanced far east beyond it. On the other hand, it crossed the 

 Pyrenees, erected its rude stone monuments in Spain and Portu- 

 gal, traversed the strait of Gibraltar, and, after setting up some 

 circles and cromlechs in northern Africa, disappeared altogether. 



What this race was we do not know ; it was not a pure one, 

 for among the skulls found in its sepulchral monuments some are 

 round and some are long-headed ; but in all probability it was a 

 long-headed race that had subjected other peoples, and had brought 

 along with it wives and slaves of alien blood. 



The tools and weapons of this remarkable people are of beau- 



