In 1884 a human vertebra, with an arrow-head imbedded in it, was picked up on the island of Santa Cruz. The apophysis was broken, and the extent of the fracture shows the great force of the blow. The victim evidently died of the wound, for there is no sign of its having been healed.
I have dwelt upon these deaths and wounds in spite of the inevitable monotony of such a list, not because I wish to bring into prominence the fact that from the earliest times the struggle for existence was fierce and bloody, but because I am anxious to prove that in these remote days an organized and intelligent society had grown up. No one could have survived such wounds as we have described, but for the care and nursing of those around him, such as the other members of his family or of his tribe. The wounded one must have been fed by others for months; nay more, he must have been carried in migrations, and his food and resting-place must have been prepared for him. Moreover, and this is of even yet more importance to our argument, they must have been men able to treat wounds and to set bones.
This last fact has been proved beyond a doubt by the discovery of numerous bones with the old wounds completely cicatrized. “In several examples,” says Dr. Prunières, speaking in this connection, “we can make out the fractures set with a neatness which gives us a very high opinion of the skill of the Neolithic bone setters. The setting of one fracture at the lower end of the tibia and of another at the neck of the femur, are not inferior to what we should expect from the most skilful surgeons of the globe.”[22] A remarkable fact truly, but one often met with in the most widely separated regions of the earth, the importance of which cannot be overrated, and justifies the giving of a few more details.
In 1873 Dr. Prunières, to whom science has reason to be very grateful for his singular discovery, presented to the members of the French Association, in session at Lyons, a human parietal with a rounded piece of bone let into it. This piece of bone was rather larger than a five-franc piece, and the skull into which it had been fixed was found beneath the Lozère dolmen. A large opening, some three inches in diameter, the edges of which were worn smooth, had been made in this skull, and the piece of bone let into it was thicker than the skull itself, as well as different in color, the cranium being dark and the foreign piece of bone pale yellow. It was evident therefore that the two pieces did not belong in life to one person, and that the rounded piece had been cut out of some other skull. The following year Dr. Prunières added fresh details about other rounded pieces of skull that be had discovered let into crania, some of which pieces had evidently been introduced during the life of the patient, who had died under the operation of trepanation, whilst others had been put in after death. Dr. Prunières in every case speaks of rondelles or rounded pieces of skulls, and we prefer to quote him exactly, but as a matter of fact the trepanation was sometimes done with elliptical, triangular, or even pyramidal pieces of bone.
Later no less than sixty fresh examples, corroborating Dr. Prunières’ discoveries, were found in the Baumes-Chaudes caves, and Broca in his turn reported the finding of three crania in the cave of L’Homme Mort, from which great pieces had been taken which had evidently not been lost by accident.
From this time excavations and discoveries made under Dr. Prunières succeeded each other rapidly. In 1887 his collection contained 167 crania or fragments of crania, all perforated, 115 of which were picked up in the caves of Lozère, which are probably of more recent date, beneath the dolmens of the devèzes, as those vast plains given lip to pasturage are called. These dolmens, which were doubtless reserved for the burial of chiefs, often contain many valuable objects. Beneath one, for instance, were found fifteen beautiful darts of variegated flint, four polished boars’ tusks, some schist pendants, some shells cut into the shape of teeth, some bone and stone necklace beads, and, lastly, two small bronze beads. These last-named objects justify us in dating the dolmen from the Bronze epoch, when the use of bronze began to spread over the district, though it was still not generally employed.
Attention once awakened, similar facts began to be announced from many different quarters. In the Neolithic caves of Marne were found skulls with rounded holes in them, pieces of skull such as are shown in [Fig. 28], which were probably worn as amulets. M. de Baye has in his fine collection more than twenty examples of trepanation, one of which is shown in [Fig. 80]. In nearly every case the operation had been performed after death; three examples alone show it to have been done during life, and that the patient certainly survived, for the wound shows very evident signs of having healed, and the edges of the openings no longer bear the marks of the tool of the operator. On one of the three crania there were two wounds near each other, but they were quite separate, and were evidently not treated at the same time.
Figure 80.
Mesaticephalic skull, with wound which has been trepanned.