630 REPOHT— 1880. 



8. On the Antiquity of Gesture and Sign Language, and the Origin of 

 Characters and Speech. By Hyde Clarke, V.P.A.I. 



The author, extending the observations of Colonel Mallery, U.S.A., gave ex- 

 amples of the connection of signs with characters, and showed that the same psy- 

 chological relations in the representation of various ideas prevailed throughout, and 

 that there was a general connection of signs, characters, and speech. There was no 

 evidence of the priority of speech, but of the dependence of speech in its beginning 

 on sign language as an illustration. It was indeed quite possible that some existing 

 sculptured symbols may belong to an epoch anterior to speech, A sign language 

 could be complete and copious in itself. He described what he had seen of the 

 mutes of the seraglio at Constantinople, whom he considered to represent the ancient 

 sign language of the eastern courts, and that recorded in classic writers. With 

 regard to the sign language of the North American Indians, he supported Dr. E. B. 

 Tylor in consideruig it to be of common and ancient origin. He said it was very 

 desirable to have the sign language of the Porno and Ilidatsa Indians, who possibly- 

 represented, in language, the mound-builders. 



I UESDA Y, A UG UST 3 1 . 

 The following Papers were read : — ■ 



1. Surgery and Superstition in Neolithic Times. By Miss A. "W. BnCKLAND. 



The object of this paper was to bring before the Anthropological Department of 

 the British Association the frequent use of trepanning in neolithic times, as proved 

 by the late Dr. Broca ; to call attention to the proofs he has given of the facts, and 

 to his explanation of the reason of the practice, and of the superstitions associated 

 with it, as also its connexion with the use of cranial amulets. 



1. Dr. Broca asserts in his work on the subject that in neolithic times a surgical 

 operation ws5 practised which consisted in making an opening in the skull, chiefly 

 of infants, in order to cure certain internal maladies, and that these maladies were 

 epilepsy and other convulsive disorders which in early times were confounded with 

 epileps)-. 



2. That such individuals as survived this operation were looked upon as endowed 

 with peculiar properties of a mj'stic character and when tbev died rounds {ron- 

 delles) or fragments were frequently cut from the trepanned skull to serve as 

 amulets, these amulets being cut by preference from the portion of the skull close 

 to, and embracing, a part of the cicatrised hole caused by the trepan. 



Dr. Broca proved by experiment tliat holes resembling those discovered could 

 be scraped in a child's skull in li\e minutes, with a flint implement, whilst the opera- 

 tion would take an hour on an adult skull ; he also shows conclusively that these holes 

 could not have been the result of accident or disease. He believes that these tre- 

 panned skulls prove that the people of neolithic times had attained to a belief in 

 spirits, and regarded epilepsy as a possession by spirits, tlie hole being cut to facili- 

 tate their e.xpulsion, and he goes on to show that this belief descended to our own 

 times ; but, at the same time, he refers the whole of the trepanned skulls hitherto 

 discovered to neolithic times, and thinks the custom died out with the introduction 

 of bronze, and with it of a new religion and a new mode of sepulture. This con- 

 clusion the author of the paper doubts, because, as shown by Dr. Broca, the practice 

 of trepanning for epilepsy, and b}' a very similar process to that of neolithic times, 

 existed in France as late as the seventeenth century ; and it was suggested that, 

 although the practice of cremation may have destroyed the proofs in many caseS| 



