ON PREHISTORIC TREPHINING AND CRANIAL AMULETS. 



BY EGBERT FLETCHER. 



Since the publication of Professor Broca's interesting article on Cra- 

 nial Amulets and Prehistoric Trephining-, in 1877/ no connected account 

 has been attempted, so far as the writer knows, of the additional discov- 

 eries which have been reported. These are scattered through the journals 

 on anthropology, and it would seem that a review of the whole subject, 

 conmiencing with a summary of Broca's observations and arguments, and 

 bringing together subsequent discoveries, would not only be of interest in 

 itself, but might result in more careful observation, leading perhaps to dis- 

 coveries of a similar custom in America. 



The first communication upon the subject of cranial amulets, and which 

 led to the discovery of evidence of prehistoric trephining, was made in 

 August, 1873, by M. Prunieres, at the meeting, at Lyons, of the French 

 Association for the Advancement of Science.^ M. Prunieres is w^ell known 

 for his researches in connection with the dolmens of La Lozere. He 

 exhibited to the association a piece of bone of an ovoid shape, 50 milli- 

 meters by 38 in its two diameters. (See Plate I, figs. 1 and 2.) The two 

 faces were untouched, but the edges had been beveled and most carefully 

 polished. It was discovered in the interior of a skull the entire side of 

 which. had been cutaway, but it was not a part of this skull ; the difi'erence 



' Sur la tr(5panatinn du crduo, et les amulettes cranienues h I'^poque n^olitliique, par Paul Broea. 

 Paris, 1877, 8°. Also, Rev. d'anthrop., Paris, 1877, vi, 1-42; 193-225. Also, Congrfes d'antlirop. et 

 d'arclidol. priShist., Budapest, 1876, 101-192. 



- Assoc, fraufaiso pour ravaucemeut des scicuces. Compte rendu de la 2"" sess., Lyou, 1673, Paris, 

 1874. 8", p. 703. 



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