538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



up in the valley of the Petit-Morin with the whole top of the 

 head removed, but these belong to an entirely different category. 

 They are all cases of mutilation after death — mutilation, in all 

 probability, of the heads of enemies. 



One of the skulls found by the Baron de Baye was that of a 

 man of advanced age who had been trepanned twice at different 

 periods, and had recovered from both operations. 



But this is not all. Not only were skulls of living men sys- 

 tematically trepanned among the men who raised the rude stone 

 circles and dolmens, or, as we call them, cromlechs, but they pre- 

 served and used as ornaments or amulets the pieces of skull thus 

 removed. A great number of such cranial disks, pierced with one 

 or two holes for suspension, have also been found in their sepul- 

 chres, and these are not infrequently polished or rubbed by fine 

 long usage. 



It does not appear that this strange custom of removing por- 

 tions of the skulls of living men and women was confined to the 

 men. Skulls similarly treated have been found elsewhere. If it 

 were a fashion, it spread among other races. 



One portion of a skull bored with holes for suspension was 

 found in a tumulus in Thuringia belonging to the bronze age. 

 A trepanned skull was extracted from a covered stone avenue at 

 Borreby, in Denmark ; another from a dolmen at Nas, in the isle 

 of Falster ; another comes from Karleby, in West Gothland, from 

 a tomb of the transition period from polished stone to bronze, 

 and this, so far, is the sole example from Sweden. 



But prehistoric trepanning was practiced in America. In the 

 Peabody Museum is a skull thus treated. Another comes from 

 Peru. A mound on the Devil's River furnished another exam- 

 ple. More trepanned skulls have been found near Lake Huron 

 and Grape Mound. A skull in a great tumulus on the river De- 

 troit had two holes cut in it. A sepulchre at Chaclocayo, near 

 Lima, contained a head that had undergone like treatment. A 

 trepanned skull was found in a tomb in the upper basin of the 

 Amazon. But all the American cases are of cranial mutilation 

 after death. 



To come to Europe, in addition to those trepanned skulls 

 already mentioned in Sweden, Denmark, and France, they have 

 been found in tombs of the neolithic age in Portugal and in Spain. 



Dr. Boulongue, in his work on Montenegro, says that it is a 

 custom of the natives of the Black Mountain to have portions of 

 their skulls removed for the smallest motive, merely if troubled 

 with headache, and not at all solely because of a blow and break- 

 age of the skull and concussion of the brain. He says that he 

 knew of individuals who had themselves trepanned seven or eight 

 times without its affecting their health. 



