Incan Skull Surgery

Science News ^ | 4-25-2008 | Bruce Bower

[blam]

Incan skull surgery

By Bruce Bower
April 25th, 2008

Holes in ancient skulls reflect skilled medical care

Healing Hole in the Head

ANCIENT SURGERY A new analysis of ancient skulls reveals skills of Incan healers in cranial cutting.Valerie Andrushko

When Incan healers scraped or cut a hunk of bone out of a person’s head, they meant business. Practitioners of this technique, known as trepanation, demonstrated great skill more than 500 years ago in treating warriors’ head wounds and possibly other medical problems, rarely causing infections or killing their patients, two anthropologists find.

Trepanation emerged as a promising but dangerous medical procedure by about 1,000 years ago in small communities near the eventual Inca heartland in Peru’s Andes mountains, say Valerie Andrushko of Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven and John Verano of Tulane University in New Orleans. Incan healers later mastered certain trepanation methods, performing them safely and frequently.

“Far from the idea of ‘savages’ drilling crude holes in skulls to release evil spirits, these ancient people were highly skilled as surgeons,” Andrushko says.

The researchers’ new investigation, published online April 3, will appear in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Prehistoric trepanation in this part of South America consisted of four techniques, the scientists say. Practitioners cut out squares of bone, bored holes in the skull, scraped away bone to create an opening or made circular incisions to remove a plug of bone. Inca surgeons specialized in the latter two methods. Excavations, however, have not yielded trepanation instruments.

In pre-Inca times, only one-third of skull surgery patients survived the procedure, as indicated by short- or long-term healing around cranial openings. Survival rates rose to between 80 and 90 percent during the Inca era, from A.D. 1400 to 1532. Few skulls showed signs of infection near surgical holes.

[SunkenCiv]

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[Fred Nerks]

skull found in the River Thames, note brow ridges.

[SunkenCiv]

Nice, thanks!

[blam]

Heavy.

[Fred Nerks]

Well-preserved skull of Gadevang Man, a prehistoric 'bog body', dated 480-60 BC, found in Denmark. The skull shows signs of a surgical trephination procedure

[Fred Nerks]

from what I can gather, there is evidence of 'skull surgery' on every continent. Egypt, Turkey, England and Ireland, and Denmark for example, aside from the large collection held in the museum at Lima, Peru.

Example from Ireland:

Leads me to believe there must have been a common cause. People wouldn't be cutting holes in their heads for no good reason...