PREHISTORIC TREPANNING. 537 



ellipse, in length about If inch ; the sides are gradually reduced 

 in thickness, and are always cut obliquely, at the expense of the 

 outer surface of the bone." 



These holes cut in the head occupy different positions ; some 

 are at the side, some on the top of the head, but never on the 

 brow or any portion not covered with hair. It is quite impossible 

 to suppose that they have been due to a blow of an axe or sword. 

 That would only be possible where portions of the skull were 

 arched or projecting. Moreover, a blow would have left bruises 

 on the bone, and it must be remembered that steel weapons were 

 then unknown ; no flint or bronze axe or sword could make so 

 clean a cut. Besides, an examination of the edges of the wounds 

 reveals the manner in which the trepanning was effected. There 

 remain the scratches, formed by a slip of the tool employed, and 

 the marks of the flint scraper which effected the operation. In 

 the majority of cases the skull was mutilated during life, and it 

 was carried out with such skill as not to injure vitality. Some of 

 the operations took place in childhood, and those who had been 

 trepanned grew to be men and women. 



The tool employed seems to have been invariably a flint scraper, 

 with a sharp edge, which was worked round and round the por- 

 tion of the skull that was to be removed till the bone was cut 

 through, when the disk was taken out whole. It was necessarily 

 a laborious and lengthy process ; it could not possibly have taken 

 less than an hour. In the case of children, when the skull is 

 tender, it would, of course, take very much less time. 



The first of the trepanned skulls was discovered as early as 

 1G85 in the tomb of Cocherel. Montfaucon mentions it. He says, 

 " One of the heads there found had the skull pierced in two places, 

 and apparently both wounds had healed." A second specimen 

 was found in 1816 in a cave at Nogent-les-Vierges which contained 

 two hundred skeletons. " One of the skulls had in it a great hole 

 three inches long and two inches wide, which seems to have been 

 caused by a wound which had resulted in the loss of a large piece 

 of bone. Nature had repaired the edges of the fracture, and M. 

 Cuvier thinks that the man in question may have lived a dozen 

 years after having received it." Thus this discovery was de- 

 scribed at the time and misunderstood. It was not till Dr. Pru- 

 nieres drew attention to the frequency of skulls being thus marked 

 and mutilated that the importance of the matter was realized. 



In the Ribeiro Museum at Lisbon is a skull of the neolithic 

 age that shows on it the work of the operator left unfinished ; the 

 oval has been nearly, not quite, cut through. In the Muse'e 

 Broca of the Socie'te' d' Anthropologic is a skull from Oise, of a 

 man who apparently died under operation. Other skulls are in- 

 deed found that have been submitted to the saw. One was dug 



