STONE AGE SKULL SURGERY — STEWART 487 



on the fact that the deaths were from the original injuries and not 

 from complications after the operations. This amount of success may 

 well be exaggerated, but it was certainly good enough to perpetuate 

 the custom. 



CONCLUDING STATEMENT 



In this review of our present knowledge of Stone Age skull sur- 

 gery many details necessarily have been omitted. Yet enough facts 

 have been presented to show that a great deal has been learned about 

 this subject since Squier returned from Cuzco with the first example 

 of primitive trephining. Indeed, by its bulk this knowledge tends 

 to create the impression that skull surgery was all of primitive sur- 

 gery. That this is not true will be seen by referring to Ackerknecht's 

 ( 1947) review of primitive surgery as a whole. Yet the fact remains 

 that more is known about Stone Age man's operations on the skull 

 than on any other part of the body. Piggott (1940, p. 114) explains 

 this situation as follows: 



[the] apparent isolation [of trephining] in the prehistory of surgery may be 

 entirely accidental, due to the fact that the skull alone occupies a virtually 

 exoskeletal position in relation to a vital organ, and in consequence any opera- 

 tional approach to the brain must be made through the bone of the skull — an 

 enduring substance in the archaeological record. 



Our knowledge of early operations on the skull tends also to give 

 the impression that the primitive surgeon was more daring in his 

 approach to the brain than the modern surgeon. This impression is 

 minimized by considerations which again have been nicely stated 

 by Piggott (p. 114): 



The trepidation with which we approach the cerebral operation today is 

 conditioned by our realization of the overwhelming importance of the brain 

 in the vertebrate anatomy, a fact but dimly appreciated until comparatively 

 recent times. It was not so long ago that, in both popular and professional 

 regard, the heart was the seat of courage, the spleen of anger, and that the 

 salient mental characteristics of the individual were located in the various 

 viscera. Small wonder if prehistoric man approached trepanning in the same 

 matter-of-fact way and upon a similar misconception as to the localisation 

 of physiological activities. 



LITERATURE CITED 



ACKERKNECHT, EKWIN, H. 



1947. Primitive surgery. Anier. Anthrop., n. s., vol. 49, pp. 25-45. 

 Anonymous. 



1935. Alaska Indians had brain surgeons 2,000 years ago. Sci. News Letter, 

 vol. 28, p. 377. 

 Bandelier, Adolph F. 



1904. Aboriginal trephining in Bolivia. Amer. Anthrop., vol. 6, pp. 440-446. 

 Beattie, John. 



1930. A note on two skulls from Tenerife. Amer. Journ. Phys. Anthrop., 

 vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 447-449. 



451800—58 32 



