STONE AGE SKULL SURGERY — STEWART 



473 



the Anthropological Society of Paris received a trephined skull — in 

 this case from New Caledonia. (See Bull. Soc. Anthrop. Paris, 3 e ser., 

 vol. 2, p. 719.) 



Among the best summaries of the literature on skull surgery in the 

 Pacific area are those by Wolf el (1925), Ford (1937), and Heyerdahl 

 (1952). From these and other sources it appears that the practice 

 centered mainly in Melanesia, particularly in the Gazelle Peninsula 

 of New Britain, in the southern part of New Ireland and certain out- 

 lying islands, in New Caledonia, and in the Loyalty Group (fig. 3). 



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Figure 3. — Map of Melanesia showing the island groups where a primitive type of skull 

 surgery was practiced in recent times. (Modified from Ford, 1937. p. 473, fig. 1.) 



When we consider how much study has been devoted to Polynesia, 

 the actual evidence for the existence of the practice there seems 

 strangely disproportionate to the rumors. Heyerdahl (1952) made a 

 special study of this and many other cultural features in developing 

 the thesis of east-west transpacific migrations in prehistoric times. 

 Except for three trephined skulls in museum collections (one each 

 from the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, and New Zealand), his assembled 

 evidence is largely hearsay. The skull from New Zealand (Wolf el, 

 1925) is suspect because it is grossly pathological (syphilis) , and proof 

 is not yet forthcoming that syphilitic gummata cannot leave healed 

 openings resembling trephine openings in the skull. Doubts arise 

 also from certain seeming errors in reporting. For example, Wolfel 

 points out (p. 13) that Turner (1884) may have mistaken the name of 

 the island Uvea (or Uea) in the Loyalty Group for the island with the 



