CHARACTERISTICS PERTAINING TO ANCIENT MAN. 243 



tlie pieces exhibited from an iacU to an inch and a quarter in dhunotei. 

 Xear the perforated skulls were found rings of cranial bone, which seemed 

 to be designed as amulets. These were evidentlj- worked with flint tools. 

 The men of the ])olished stone age practiced ti-epannfng ; for if some of 

 the skulls appear to have been perforated after death, others were 

 treated during- life, and the patients had lived for years afterward. 

 One skull presented three perforations, made near each other on a line 

 fore and aft. There is no distinction of age, the excisions occurring 

 upon infants as well as upon adults. The motive of this strange custom 

 was either medical or superstitious. They probably attributed disease 

 to supernatural agencies ; the evil spirit escaping through the opening 

 made hy the sorcerer, who wrapjied the operation in a shroud of mys- 

 tery by preserving the detached piece as a precious relic. From the 

 appearance of these facts re[)orted by the learned archaeologist of 

 Lozere, he said that a new light had been shed upon the intellectual 

 state of man in the polished stone age. It explained his religious con- 

 ceptions, and confirmed the discovery of the figure of a goddess in 

 the caverns of Baye, (Marne.) M. Broca remarked that perforated skulls 

 were also found at the last-named station. Among the skulls dug up 

 by General Faidherbe were found two in the same condition. Dr. Chil, 

 from the Canary Islands, said that perforated skulls had been found in 

 the ancient burial-places of his country. Xotice was also called to an 

 example from the Grotto of Lorde, upon which M. Hamy and M. Cha- 

 l)lain-Duparc gave some interesting details. A similarly perforated or 

 trepanned skull was found by Mr. E. G. Squier among some ancient 

 Peruvian crania collected by him." 



I have not seen the original report ; but the concluding remark on 

 the Peruvian skull removes some doubt as to the kind of i3erforatiou 

 described. In the well-known instance discovered by Mr. Squier, the 

 character and the meaning of the operation (trepanning, the excision 

 having been made during the lifetime of the individual) are so evident, 

 and the shape (rectangular) antl the position (on the left side of the 

 frontal bone) so different from that of the perforations which I have 

 described in the crania from Michigan, that I never for a moment associ- 

 ated them, and therefore made no reference to the Peruvian skull. The 

 same view, we may presume, was taken by the learned persons to whom 

 I referred my discoveries, who could scarcely be supposed ignorant of 

 the case in question. 



1 find no positive statement as to the position of the perforations men- 

 tioned at the meeting of the French association, but judge from certain 

 remarks that (again unlike our instances from Michigan) there was no 

 constant position observed. In certain cases of trepanning, the position, 

 of course, must have varied with the location of the injury to be operated 

 on. 



In short, the perforation which I find in Michigan crania is exceptional, 

 rarely present ; it is simply a circular hole about half an inch, more or 



