Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples

by marquis de Jean-François-Albert du Pouget Nadaillac

This was to Broca a flash of illuminating light, and according to him was in some cases a religious rite, a ceremony of initiation, perhaps even a custom inculcated by an established religion. The child who had been subjected to it and had survived—as probably most of the victims did survive,—attained to a certain position and celebrity in his life, and after his death the fragments of his skull, especially those portions near the old wound, became treasured relics, and were in the end buried with their fortunate possessor on his death.

This superstition appears to have long survived even in historic times, and a Gallic chain is quoted[33] on which hung a round piece of skull with three holes in it. In. deed, these ornaments were so much sought after that counterfeits of them were made; at least, we cannot in any other way account for the occurrence of objects exactly resembling round pieces of human crania, but in reality made out of pieces of a stag’s antler found in the Baumes-Chaudes Cave.

Yet another point deserves mention. It was evidently considered undesirable that the crania from which pieces had been taken should be left in a mutilated condition, and therefore pieces front other crania were taken to fill up the gap, so that, says Broca,[34] a new life was evidently supposed to await the dead, for otherwise what object can the restitution have served?

Dr. Prunières is also of opinion[35] that the introduction into the crania of certain deceased persons of round pieces from other skulls implies the belief in another life. This explanation, hypothetical as it is, is really very plausible, and it is a pleasant thought that our remote ancestors had faith in a future life; which faith is alike the greatest honor and the greatest comfort of humanity. Is not yet another more striking proof of the belief in a second existence to be found in the number of objects placed in tombs at all periods of time and in every part of the world? It is this belief, raising man as it does above the material needs of his daily life, which forms the true grandeur of the human race, and if a nation once loses it it is sure to relapse into barbarism.

When trepanning was the fashion there is no doubt that the operation was performed in many different ways. Posthumous trepanations were accomplished with the aid of a flint implement used as a chisel or a saw. There was greater difficulty about an operation on a living subject. Broca is of opinion that it was done with a drill turned round and round in the skull in the way the French shepherds still treat diseases of the crania in their sheep. The elliptical form of the wound seemed to him to prove this, and he was further of opinion that when an opening had been drilled in the skull at the point chosen, the trepanation was completed by scraping the bone with a small flint blade.[36] Discoveries made since the death of the great French anthropologist, however, compel us to modify this opinion. The inflammation of the bone noticed along the edges of the trepanation proves that a notched implement was used to saw out the piece of skull.[37]

However the operation may have been performed, it is not one of great danger to the patient or of great difficulty to the operator. Experiments on animals with Quaternary flint implements have always been successful, and have had no tragic results, which is the best proof we can possibly give.

The size of the perforations made varies ad infinitum. One, the largest known, is described which is no less than sixteen inches in diameter.[38] Examples are known of the trepanation of every part of the skull, even of the forehead, which at one time was supposed to have escaped. We have ourselves given instances of frontal trepanation, and Dr. Prunières mentions eleven cases in which the forehead had been operated on.

To conclude, we must repeat that trepanation is not really a dangerous operation, and the reason it is nearly always followed by the death of the subject in our own time is because it is never attempted except in desperate cases, and the fatal result is really caused by the cerebral disease, on account of which the operation was performed. History tells us of its practice in very ancient times; Hippocrates speaks of it as often resorted to by Greek physicians. It is performed in the present day by the Negritos of Papua and the natives of Australia and of some of the South Sea Islands, where it is considered efficacious in many maladies. We also find it practised by the rough miners of Cornwall and the wild mountaineers of Montenegro.[39] An army doctor who travelled in Montenegro a few years ago said that it was no rare thing to meet men who had been subjected to trepanation seven, eight, or even nine times. It is an interesting question, though we must not enter into it here, whether many races could stand such a number of operations as this.

The only instance we know in the present day of trepanation practised as a religious rite, is met with among the Kabyles, who are established at the foot of Mount Aurès on the south of the Atlas. The operation is performed among them by the thébibe, one of their priests, by the aid of a simple gimlet which he turns rapidly round between his fingers. Among the Kabyles are men who have submitted to an operation of this kind several times.

We have now passed in review the weapons of prehistoric peoples, the wounds they caused, and the modes of healing them known to our ancestors; we have still to study the modes of defence resorted to by them in face of the many dangers by which they were surrounded; but the importance of this subject is such as to deserve separate consideration.