474 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1957 



same name near Samoa and thus moved the practice far from its real 

 setting. As for the surgical instruments from Tahiti sent to Topinard 

 in 1875, referred to above, Topinard frankly admitted that he did not 

 believe they were used exclusively for trephining and suggested that 

 they might have been used for scarification, lancing, etc. Thus it is 

 not easy to say whether Heyerdahl is correct when he concludes : 



We have ample evidence to suggest that the Peruvians brought trepanning and 

 its associates down-wind into the Pacific at an early period when Polynesia was 

 still virgin land. The strongest evidence has survived on both sides of Poly- 

 nesia, but although this latter intervening area has later been overrun by another 

 immigrant stream, some islands . . . present sufficient evidence to show that 

 the trepanation bridge formerly spanned the whole water from the coast of Peru 

 to the islands in Melanesia. (P. 665.) 



Nothing is known about time depth for the practice of skull surgery 

 in the Pacific. The reliable records consist either of eyewitness ac- 

 counts or actual skulls which had been operated upon in recent times. 

 Even these skulls seem to be few in number, totaling, so far as can be 

 judged from the literature, scarcely 100. 



South America. — Following Squier's discovery of the first trephined 

 skull in Peru, a long time elapsed before much more became known 

 about skull surgery in South America. The next specimen to receive 

 publicity was from Chaclacayo, near Lima, Peru (Mason, 1885). * 

 Surprisingly, in this case the opening in the forehead was said to have 

 been made after death and it was stated further that all "examples of 

 aboriginal trephining in America were more than probably post 

 mortem" (p. 411). Doubtless this erroneous opinion reflects the con- 

 troversy then in progress regarding certain North American skulls 

 cut post mortem to obtain amulets (Fletcher, 1882; Gillman. 1876, 

 1885). 



Not until 1897, when the Smithsonian Institution published the 

 classic monograph by Muiiiz and McGee on Peruvian trephining, did 

 the world learn much more about the practice in Peru. Even after 

 this, important contributions to the subject were slow in appearing 

 (Tello, 1913; MacCurdy, 1923; Quevedo, 1943; Weiss, 1949; Grana 

 et al., 1954) . Yet it appears now that more trephined skulls have been 

 found in Peru than in all the rest of the world together. If to this 

 number are added skulls showing other types of surgical intervention, 

 probably the total approaches 1,000. 



Although Peru doubtless was the surgical center of South America, 

 the practice was restricted largely to the central and southern parts 



1 Originally cataloged as No. 75961 in the Division of Ethnology, U. S. National 

 Museum, it was subsequently transferred to the Army Medical Museum (now 

 Medical Museum of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology) where it now 

 bears AFIP No. 287904. 



