Books: Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
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The Marquis de Nadaillac >> Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
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FIGURE 78
Fragment of human tibia with exostosis enclosing the end of a flint
arrow.
In other cases the victims seem to have lived for some time. We
have already spoken of wounds in crania that had healed, and we
may add that a few years ago a, human bone was presented to the
Archaeological Society of Bordeaux which still retained a flint
arrow-head in the wound it had made. Traces could clearly be made
out of the inflammation caused by the presence of the foreign body,
and the bony tissue secreted by the periosteum had, so to speak,
taken the mould of the arrow (Fig. 78).
In the cave known as the Trou d'Argent (Basses-Alpes) amongst the
bones of ruminants and carnivora, fragments of pottery and rubbish
of all kinds, was found a piece of humerus (Fig. 79) pierced at
the elbow joint and very neatly cut at the lower end, no doubt with
the help of some of the implements of hard rock scattered about the
cave. The position of this human bone amongst the remains of animals
and fragments of a meal, points to its being a relic of a scene of
cannibalism; adding yet another proof to what I said at the beginning
of this work.
FIGURE 79
Fragment of human humerus pierced at the elbow joint, found in the
Trou d'Argent.
Similar facts are reported front England and Germany. Dr. Wankel
mentions an interesting prehistoric deposit at Prerau, near Olmutz,
amongst the bones of animals belonging to the most ancient Quaternary
fauna, such as the mammoth, the cave-bear, the cave-lion, the glutton,
and the arctic fox; and amongst clumsy bone and ivory weapons and
ornaments he found a human jaw and a femur covered with strip produced
by flint hatchets. In 1801 Mr. Cunnington took several skeletons from
a barrow near Heytesbury, the skull of one of which had been broken
with a blunt implement; and Sir R. Hoare speaks of a skull from the
neighborhood of Stonehenge split open by a blow from one of these
formidable weapons. Several crania taken from a long barrow at West
Kennet have similar wounds.
Similar facts were noticed at Littleton-Drew, at Uley, at Cotswold,
and at Rodmarten, and from this Dr. Thurmam concluded that nearly
all those who were buried in long barrows had met with a violent
death.[184] He speaks, however, of one skull pierced with a large hole,
the edges of which had become rounded smooth, showing the action of
a recuperative process, and proving that the injured man had long
survived his serious wound. In 1809, a farmer of Kirkcudbrightshire
set to work to demolish a large cairn that interfered with his tilling
of the soil, and which, according to popular tradition, was the tomb
of a Scotch king. In taking away the earth the workmen found a large
stone coffin, in which lay the skeleton of a man of great stature. The
arm had been almost separated from the trunk by the blow of a diorite
hatchet, a broken bit of which remained imbedded in the bone.[185]
One of the few crania that can with certainty be said to have belonged
to Lake Dwellers of Switzerland was found at Sutz, near Zurich;
this skull was fractured at the back. The roundness of the wound,
which had been serious enough to cause death, has led authorities to
conclude that it was made with one of the formidable pick-hammers, so
many of which were found in the lake of Bienne.[186] Nilsson speaks of
a human cranium pierced with a flint arrow, and of another, both found
at Tygelso (Scandinavia), containing a dart made out of the antler of
an eland.[187] At Chauvaux, at Cesareda, and Gibraltar other crania
have been found bearing the marks of mortal wounds, and if we cross
the Atlantic we meet with similar instances. Lund tells us that at
Lagoa do Sumidouro crania were found pierced with circular tools,
whilst near them lay the implements that had caused death.[188] At
Comox, in Vancouver Island, a skeleton was found with a flint knife
imbedded in one of the bones, and at Madisonville (Ohio) another,
one of the bones of which was pierced by a triangular stone arrow;
whilst beneath a mound in Indiana was picked up a skull pierced by a
flint arrow more than six inches long. Excavations at Copiapo (Chili)
brought to light the skeleton of a man who had sustained no less than
eight wounds from arrows. The force with which they must have been
shot is really astonishing; one had broken the upper jaw and knocked
out several teeth, penetrating to the brain; and others were still
sticking in the vertebrae and ribs.[189]
In the New as in the Old World man survived many of these horrible
wounds, and a skull found under a mound near Devil's River shows
a serious wound inflicted many years before death, and one of the
Peruvian crania in the Peabody Museum bears a long frontal fracture,
doubtless produced by the violent blow of a club; the five or six
fragments still to be made out are, so to speak, solidified, and the
wounded man had evidently lived on for many years, thanks apparently to
his good constitution alone, for there are no signs of the performing
of any surgical operation, such as the removal of the splinters of
bone, for instance.[190]
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. Prunieres, 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."[191] 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. Prunieres, 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 Lozere 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. Prunieres 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. Prunieres 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. Prunieres'
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. Prunieres
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 Lozere, which are probably of more recent date,
beneath the dolmens of the DEVEZES, 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.
A tumulus in the Guisseny commune (Finistere), excavated about
two years ago, covered over a sepulchral crypt. At the southeastern
extremity was picked up a badly baked hand-made earthenware vase with
four handles. Beside the vase lay a skull, on which could be made out
traces of oxidation, which had probably been caused by the wearing of
a metal band, which has not been found. This skull bears on the right
side a little oval hole with cicatrized edges about an inch long by
two fifths of an inch broad. The discovery of a bronze dagger and two
bronze plaques leaves no doubt as to the age of this tumulus. This
example of trepanation is the only well authenticated one of which
I know in Brittany. It is true one skull has been mentioned as found
beneath the megalithic monument of Saint-Picoux de Quiberon (Morbihan),
which is even said to bear marks of sawing and scraping made in
attempting trepanation, but this fact has been very much questioned,
and the date at which the trepanation was performed, if performed it
were, is very doubtful.[192] The proof we are seeking of the antiquity
of the operation of trepanation is not therefore to be found here.
On a plain amongst the hills of the right bank of the Seine, above
Paris, rises a mound resembling a promontory which is known as
the Guerin mound, and consists of a vast deposit of chalk which
was excavated long ago. Successive operations have brought to
light eight caves, most of which contained a number of human
remains, which were unfortunately dispersed without having been
scientifically examined. One alone, opened in 1874, contained
numerous bones belonging to individuals of every age and of both
sexes, with polished flints, fragments of pottery, and implements
of stag-horn. Amongst these relics was found the skull of an old man
showing a very curious example of trepanation. It was unfortunately
broken by the workmen in the very moment of discovery, and could only
be very insufficiently examined. Other examples, however, which could
be properly authenticated, are not wanting from the banks of the Seine
and Marne; two fragments of skull were found in the canton of Moret,
one of which had been trepanned during the life of its owner, and the
other after death. We must also mention the crania presented to the
learned societies at the Sorbonne, one of which came from the plateau
of Avrigny, near Mousseaux-les-Bray (Seine-et-Marne). Side by side
with the skeleton lay polished hatchets, scrapers, and arrow-heads,
fragments of pottery blackened by smoke, and lastly a solitary bone
of an ox, pierced with three holes at regular distances, which had
probably been used as a flute. Of nine crania found in this excavation
three were pierced, two after death and one during life, the edges
of the last named bearing very evident traces of treatment.
A trepanned skull was also discovered in a Neolithic sepulchre near
Crecy-sur-Morin, where lay no less than thirty skeletons, remarkable
for the strongly defined section of the tibiae, whilst around were
strewn hatchets, flint knives, bones, stilettos and picks of siliceous
limestone with handles made of pieces of stag-horn. The tomb, built of
stones without mortar, contained two contiguous chambers separated by
a wall, and covered over by a stone weighing more than 1,200 tons. It
seems likely that this huge stone had not been moved -- it must
have been beyond the strength of the makers of the tomb to lift it,
-- but that the spaces beneath, in which the dead had been placed,
had been merely hollowed out. In the covered AVENUE DES MUREAUX,
of which I have already spoken, were picked up several trepanned
crania. The tools, scrapers, and piercers, which had probably been
used for the operation, lay near the crania.
A Neolithic sepulchre containing three trepanned crania was opened at
Dampont, near Dieppe. The operation had been as neatly executed as if
it had been performed by one of our most distinguished surgeons. As
at Crecy, the sepulchral crypt was divided into two chambers, and the
slab between them was pierced with a square opening,[193] -- a fresh
example of the curious practice of making openings, of which we have
spoken in treating of so many different regions, often apparently
completely cut off from communication with each other.
Beneath the Bougon dolmen (Deux-Sevres), in the west of France, was
found a skull, and at Lizieres in the same department, the skeleton
of a tall old man with a dolichocephalic skull and platycnemic tibiae
bearing traces of old wounds badly healed. The bony tissue of the
skull was in an unhealthy state and the trepanation had evidently
been part of medical treatment. At Saint-Martin-la-Riviere (Vienna),
a tomb dating from Neolithic times contained five trepanned crania,
on one of which the perforation had been made by scraping. In this
tomb was also found a round piece of skull with a hole in it, which
had doubtless been used as a pendant. The other objects found in
this sepulchre were of a remarkable character, and included hatchets
made of coralline limestone, jade, fibrolite, and serpentine, the
blades of flint knives, arrows, some feathered, others stalked, some
necklace beads, and a number of vases, some apodal, others with flat
stands, and nearly all without any attempt at ornamentation. Beneath
a dolmen near St. Affrique, M. Cartailhac discovered a skull with two
holes in it; one near the bregma, which had been made during life,
and the other on a level with the lambda, which had not been made
until after death.[194] We cannot now note the important conclusions
founded on these two perforations, we must be content with adding
here that the tomb contained four other skeletons with crania
showing no trace of trepanation; the tibiae were platycnemic and
the humeri had the so-called perforation of the olecranon farces,
which certain anthropologists, as I think without sufficient reason,
consider characteristic of inferior races. We must mention yet one
more discovery which it will not do to omit. A human parietal with a
piece missing that had evidently been taken out, was found beneath
the rock-shelter of Entre-Roches near Angouleme. The skull bore
very evident traces of the performance of an operation which may or
may not have been executed during life. Was it done to remove the
diseased bone -- for it was diseased -- in the hope of prolonging
life? Did the patient die under the hands of the surgeon, or was
the piece of bone taken out after death to be used as an ornament or
an amulet? Any one of these hypotheses is possible, and all we can
say for certain is that there is no sign of the wound having been
healed in any way. This is a common thing enough, and the interest
of the discovery arises from a different cause. The rock-shelter
of Entre-Roches is supposed to date from Paleolithic times, and if
it were certain that there has been no displacement of the soil on
which the parietal was found, it is to be concluded that trepanation
was practised in the Quaternary period when man was living amongst
the large extinct pachydermata and felidae. But it will be difficult
to admit this unless other discoveries confirming it are made. If,
however, we cannot prove that trepanation was practised in France
in Palaeolithic times, we can assert that it was continued down to
the earliest centuries of the Christian era. One remarkable case
of trepanation was found, for instance, in the Merovingian cemetery
near St. Quentin; and a trepanned skull was recently exhibited at a
meeting of the Anthropological Society in Paris, which had been found
beneath a Merovingian tomb at Jeuilly. The patient had long survived
his wound. The skeleton was found in a stone trough, narrower at the
foot than at the head. The skeleton of a man between forty and fifty
years of age was found in a Frank cemetery at Limet, near Liege. On
the left parietal of the skull was an oval hole as big as a pigeon's
egg, bearing traces of having been medically treated. The patient,
like the man of Jeuilly, certainly survived the operation. His tomb,
as were the resting-places of his neighbors in death, was covered over
with a huge unhewn stone, and beside him lay another skeleton. A few
nails and bits of wood were the only things found in the tomb. We
may also mention the skeleton of a Frank of between fifty-five and
sixty-five years of age with a trepanned skull, found by M. Pilloy,
in a cemetery of the St. Quentin ARRONDISSEMENT, which also contained
numerous objects dating from the sixth century A.D.
So far we have only spoken of France, but similar facts are reported
all over Europe, and the difficulty really is to make a selection. Some
round pieces of skull, like those of Lozere, have been picked up in
Umbria[195]; and a skull, bearing traces of an operation, the aim
of which was to remove a portion of the left parietal, was found in
the Casa da Mouva (Portugal), which dates, as do so many in France,
from Neolithic times.
Goss mentions a discovery in one of the pile-dwellings of Lake Bienne,
of a skull with a large hole in it with bevelled edges. There is no
trace of this wound having healed, and the patient had evidently died
soon after the operation.
The Prague Museum possesses two crania found at Bilin in Bohemia;
one, of a pronounced dolichocephalic type, has near the middle of the
right parietal an opening measuring one and a half by two and a third
inches; the cicatrization is complete, and trepanation was evidently
performed long before death. The other is mesaticephalic, and bears a
round opening about one and a half inches in diameter. Dr. Wankel, to
whom we owe these details, is well known through other discoveries; his
excavations in the Bytchiskala Cave brought to light the skeleton of a
young girl of ten or twelve years old, who bad undergone the operation
of trepanation. The wound, which was on the right side of the forehead,
was half healed. The child still wore the ornaments she had been fond
of in life -- bronze bracelets and a necklace of large glass beads.
Discoveries of a similar character succeeded each other in Bohemia, and
in nearly every case the operation of trepanation had been performed
on the upper part of the forehead. Not very long ago it was reported
to the Anthropological Society of Berlin that in excavating two tombs
containing the remains of burnt bodies at Trupschutz, on the west
of Brux, some fragments of skull were picked up, showing traces of
trepanation. The edges of the wound in this case bad been healed,
and the patient had lived on after the operation. Professor Virchow
came to the same conclusion with regard to a skull from a Neolithic
tomb which bore on the right parietal traces of an ancient cicatrized
wound. He also tells us of the finding in Poland of a round piece of
skull which had evidently been worn as an amulet.[196]
In the north of Europe similar discoveries have been made. At Borreby,
in Denmark, a skull was found from which large pieces had been taken;
and another from beneath a dolmen at Noes, in the island of Falster,
had a hole in it no less than two and a quarter by one and three
quarter inches in size. In the one case the holes were parts of a
wound to which the victim had succumbed; in the other the edges were
too regular to have been caused by traumatism. A Russian skull, a cast
of which has recently been presented to the Italian Anthropological
Society, bears traces of two trepanations; one performed during life,
the other after death. The former had evidently been caused neither
by illness nor by a wound.
General Faidherbe discovered at Roknia, in Algeria, two trepanned
skulls, dating from a remote antiquity, in one of which the wound is
half an inch in diameter, and shows no sign of cicatrization; and
travellers speak of evident traces of similar operations on skulls
dating from the time of the Ainos;, the ancestors or predecessors
of the Japanese at the present day; and if we cross the Atlantic,
we shall meet with instances of trepanations executed in a similar
manner, and probably for similar reasons.
We meet with numerous examples of trepanation in America, and fresh
discoveries are daily made by the energetic men of science in that
country. Dr. Mantegazza[197] mentions three examples of trepanation
from Peru, which are of very great interest. One skull, still bound
up in many cloths, was found in the Sanja-Huara Cave (province of
Anta), which had been twice trepanned, and on which yet two more
attempts at trepanation bad been made. The latter seem to have taken
place at different times, and death seems to have succeeded the last
operation. Another skull which had belonged to an adult of Huarocondo
has two frontal openings close to each other; the upper, of elliptical
shape, is of large size and was evidently made after death. Yet another
skull from the province of Ollantay-tambo bears a double trepanation,
evidently made during life. The healing of the parietal opening proves
that it was made before the wound in the forehead, in which the edges
have remained rough. Dr. Mantegazza thinks that in the two first
cases the operations took place after the patient had been wounded,
but that in the third, the patient operated upon bad been epileptic
or perhaps even insane. We find it difficult to follow the learned
professor here, as w e are ignorant of the grounds for his conclusions.
We give an illustration (Fig. 81) of a trepanned skull found in a
cemetery in the Yucay valley. A square piece has been cut out by
making four regular incisions. The bone shows traces of an ancient
inflammation, and many eminent surgeons, including Nelaton and Broca,
have not hesitated to attribute the opening, large as it is (seven by
six inches), to a surgical operation. If the incisions are carefully
examined it is easy to see that they were made with the help of a
pointed instrument, such as a clumsily made drill, for instance. Each
incision must have taken a long time to make, and we note with ever
increasing astonishment that the ancient Peruvians were not acquainted
with the use of iron or steel, and that the hardest metal they employed
was bronze.
FIGURE 81
Trepanned Peruvian skull.
A few years ago a sepulchre was opened at Chaclacayo, at the foot
of Mount Chosica, not far from Lima. In this tomb lay three mummies,
of a man, a woman, and a child. Near them lay a human skull, having
about the middle of the forehead an opening, measuring some two and
a half by two inches. It is of polygonal form, and eight different
incisions can easily be made out, which appear to have been made
with some notched stone implement. On raising a strip of skin, still
adhering to the skull, there was seen on the front part of the sagittal
suture a very small perforation, the result either of a wound or of
an operation which bad taken place during life. It has been suggested
that the piece of bone taken from the skull had been used to make
a lance or arrow-head, which was superstitiously supposed by the
owner to ensure his victory. This is, however, a mere suggestion,
of which no proof can be given.
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