Books: Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples

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In other party of America discoveries have been made of trepanned
skulls, supposed to date from even more remote times than those
we have just been considering. A few years ago Professor Putnam
found, in the State of Ohio, some old wells idled with cinders and
rubbish of all kinds. From one of them, which was deeper than the
others, he took several crania, some of which bore evident traces
of trepanation. From a mound near Dallas (Illinois) were taken more
than one hundred skeletons, all of adults, placed side by side in
a crouching attitude. Every one of them had a round opening on the
left temple, and in some of these wounds the flint implement which
had produced them was still imbedded. It is very evident that we have
here tokens of some funereal rite, the meaning of which is uncertain,
though it was evidently practised also in districts very remote
from Illinois. To mention yet other examples, the excavation of a
tumulus of irregular form near Devil's River (Michigan) has brought
to light five skeletons buried u right, whilst a sixth lay in the
centre of the tumulus, which was evidently, if w e may so express it,
the place of honor. On each of the six crania a perforation had been
made after death.

A number of crania and parts of crania on which trepanation had
been performed have also been taken from several mounds on Chamber's
Island, from beneath the mound in the neighborhood of the Sable River,
near Lake Huron, and near the Red River[198] Gillman thinks that the
Michigan trepanations, which bad been made with clumsy tools, were
simply holes for hanging up skulls as trophies, as is still customary
amongst the Dyaks of Borneo; but this seems scarcely a tenable
hypothesis, for as a rule the skeletons lying in their last home are
complete. Quite recently were discovered, beneath a tumulus near Rock
River, eight skeletons, the skull of one of which bore a circular
perforation made during life, which rather upsets Gillman's theory.

But to resume our narrative. The trepanations reported from North
America are generally posthumous, and we can prove nothing as to their
origin. Were they marks of honor made in some religious rite? Were
they openings to allow the spirit of the departed to revisit the body
it had abandoned? or, to suggest a far more worldly and revolting
motive, were they merely holes through which to pick out the brains
of the dead. A missionary, in a letter dated from Fort Pitt (Canada)
in 1880, describes the mode of scalping practised by the Redskins,
and says that they often take a round piece of skull as well as the
scalp. May not this be a case of atavism, or the transmission of a
custom from one generation to another, for the origin of which we must
go back to the most remote ages? In the present state of our knowledge,
insufficient as it is, this explanation is the most. plausible.

It is even more difficult to come to a satisfactory conclusion
with regard to European examples of the practice we have been
describing. Trepanation was certainly practised in the treatment of
certain diseases of the bone, such as osteitis or caries. Professor
Parrot mentions a case worth quoting.[199] A few years ago several
skeletons were found at Bray-sur-Seine (Seine-et-Marne) with numerous
objects, such as polished stone hatchets, bone stilettos, shell
necklaces and ornaments, all undoubtedly Neolithic. One of the crania
had been trepanned, the position of the operation showing that its
object had been to treat an osteitis. The operation had succeeded,
and the cicatrization of the bones, both about the wound and in the
parts originally affected, shows that recovery was complete. This
is the only example we have of an operation executed with a view
to curing a disease that can actually be seen, and it enables us to
conclude that these men, of whom we know so little, had some notion
of surgery. Were trepanations also practised to cure epilepsy or to
heal mental affections? From the earliest times the seat of these
troubles was always supposed to be the brain, and an ancient book of
medicine recommends as a remedy the scraping of the outside of the
skull.[200] In a recent book ("De la Trepanation dans l'Epilepsie par
le Traumatisme du Crane"), Echeverria mentions several cases of cure by
trepanation when epilepsy had been the result of an injury. Observation
may have led our prehistoric ancestors to discover this. May we date
this custom then from prehistoric times? It is very difficult to
decide with certainty either for or against it.

Of one thing, however, we may be quite certain. The cranial
perforations so much like one another reported from districts so remote
and different in character, cannot be accidental. It is impossible
to attribute to chance the occurrence of injuries of exactly the
same size in crania of totally different origins. Setting aside
the Entre-Roches skull, the antiquity of which does not seem to us
sufficiently established, we find this custom maintained throughout
the period characterized by the use of polished stone weapons and
implements, the erection of megalithic monuments, and the domestication
of animals. It was practised by the men of the cave of L'HOMME MORT
at the beginning of the Neolithic period, and was still in use at
Moret when metals began to be known. The discoveries of Dr. Wankel,
the excavations of the tumulus of Guisseny, prove that trepanation
was continued throughout the Bronze age, whilst the Jeuilly and Limet
tombs show that it was not discontinued even in Merovingian times.

The long continuance of such a practice is a very interesting fact,
and we may mention a yet more curious one. How are we to explain
trepanations that had no apparent motive on crania showing no symptoms
of disease? How account for the repetition at different tunes of this
operation, first on the living subject and then on the corpse, as at
St. Affrique, Bougon (Fig. 82), at Feigneux (Oise), where Dr. Topinard
has recently made excavations in a Neolithic cave and reports that a
dolichocephalic skull of the same type as the crania of the cave of
L'HOMME MORT, belonging to a man of about thirty years of age, bore
two perforations, one made during life, the other after death? The
first measured two and a third by two and a half inches, and was
surrounded by scratches, showing how clumsy the operator had been.[201]

FIGURE 82

Skull from the Bougon dolmen (Deux-Sevres), seen in profile.

In nearly every case the subjects operated on were young, and long
survived the operation. The knowledge of this fact was from the first
a very useful guide in the study of the subject of trepanation,
and eagerly pursued researches constantly confirm it. One skull,
for instance, from the cave of L'HOMME MORT (Fig. 83), had a
large opening produced partly by an old operation and partly by two
posthumous trepanations. The subject had been trepanned in childhood
or early youth. There could be no doubt on that point; cicatrization
had been complete, the bony tissue having returned to its original
condition. Then after death, at an adult age, the relations or friends
of the deceased had cut out further round portions of the skull as
near as possible to the old wound, probably with a view to keeping
these pieces as amulets.

FIGURE 83

Trepanned prehistoric skull.

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[202] 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,[203]
a new life was evidently supposed to await the dead, for otherwise
what object can the restitution have served?

Dr. Prunieres is also of opinion[204] 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.[205] 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.[206]

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.[207] 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. Prunieres 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.[208] 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 Aures on the south of the Atlas. The operation
is performed among them by the THEBIBE, 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.

CHAPTER VII

Camps, Fortifications, Vitrified Forts; Santorin; The Towns upon the
Hill of Hissarlik.

Combativeness, to use the language of phrenology, is one of the most
lively instincts of humanity. The Bible tells us of the struggle
between the sons of Adam, and shows us might making right ever
since the days of primeval man. History is but one long account of
wars and conquests, victories or defeats, and progress is chiefly
marked in inventions which made battles more sanguinary and added
to the number of victims slaughtered. At the very dawn of humanity
man learned to make weapons; very soon, however, weapons ceased to
appear sufficient. The first fortification was doubtless the cave,
which its owner strengthened by closing the entrance with blocks of
stone and piles of broken rock, or by digging deep trenches about it.

Population rapidly increased and war was declared between tribe and
tribe, nation and nation, race and race. Terrible must have been
the struggles between invaders and the original possessors of the
soil. Means of defence were multiplied to keep pace with new modes of
attack, and our ancestors of the Stone age were intelligent enough to
make places of refuge in which on necessity they could shelter their
wives and children, and later, when they became sedentary, their flocks
and their stores of grain. In many different localities we find the
remains of camps and fortifications, which, to avoid using a more
ambitious term, we may characterize generally as enclosures.[209]

These primitive enclosures, says Bertrand in his "Archeologie Celtiquc
et Gauloise," may have been very much more numerous than is supposed,
if we include amongst them, as it appears we ought, many ruins long
thought to date from the Roman era.

There is no doubt as to the purpose served by the camps, but we are not
prepared to speak as positively as does Bertrand as to their origin,
and the difficulty of deciding is very greatly increased on account
of these camps having been successively occupied at different epochs
by different peoples. Bearing in mind this reservation, we will now
sum up to the best of our ability all that is so far known about the
most important remains hitherto examined.

The residence of prehistoric man in the rich districts between
the Sambre and the Meuse is proved by worked flints, fragments of
pottery, and human bones dating from most remote times. The stations
successively occupied were situated near watercourses or copious
springs, and, where possible, on isolated escarped plateaux surrounded
by ravines. Hastedon, about a mile and a quarter from Namur, is one
of the best examples we can quote.[210] The camp, first made out in
1865, formed a long square, covering some thirteen hectares, or about
thirty-two acres. It is situated on an isolated mound connected with
the main plateau by an isthmus 227 feet long, and is protected on the
south and west by a deep ravine: To these natural defences men had
added important works to those parts that were accessible. The cutting
of trenches a few years ago brought to light walls of a mean thickness
of more than nine feet, formed of masses of rock and sand and round
pieces of wood parallel with a REVETEMENT of dry stones surmounted
by a palisade consisting of three pieces of wood parallel with the
walls, and seven perpendicular traverses. All the wood was charred;
the besieged had evidently been driven out by fire. Excavations led to
the finding of Roman coins; this and the resemblance of the palisades
to those described by Caesar,[211] the very name of Hastedon, and
the tradition everywhere prevalent in the district, that this bad
been the site of a Gallic Roman camp, led to the general adoption of
that opinion. In fact, Napoleon III. actually ordered excavations
to be made in the hope of finding traces of the Atuatuques, one of
the roost warlike of the tribes of northern Gaul; but side by side
with historic relics were no less than ten thousand flints. These are
chiefly merely chips or nuclei which had served as hammers, or long
thin slices, with some few arrow- and lance-beads often skilfully
cut, some polished hatchets, and saws with fine teeth. Nearly all
are notched and worn with use, which does away with the idea that
the place where they were found was the site of a workshop such as
I have already described. With these worked flints were found some
fragments of coarse pottery, which could not possibly be confounded
with Roman or Gallic work. The flints and pottery, and the walls put
together without cement, point to the conclusion that if the camp of
Hastedon was occupied by the Roman legions, it was long previous to
their day inhabited by some Neolithic race, ignorant of the use of
any but stone weapons and implements.

The camp of Pont-de-Bonn in the commune of Modave (Namur) very
much resembles in its arrangement that of Hastedon.[212] A mound
stands out upon the plain protected on the north and west by rocks
difficult of access and connected with the main plateau by a very
narrow tongue of land. Outside we can make out regular trenches
parallel with each other, and connected by a wall of masonry, at the
foot of which wall were picked up a good many iron nails. Inside the
ENCEINTE itself worked flints were associated with Roman coins. Are
not these proofs in the first place of a long Neolithic occupation,
then of the residence of Gallic Romans, and yet later of even more
modern people of whom the masonry walls and iron nails are relics?

Limburg also contains some defensive works, many centuries old,
which are as yet but little known. We may mention amongst them the
so-called dyke of Zeedyck, near Tongres, a formidable intrenchment
some 2,186 yards long by more than 325 feet wide at the base, and of
a height varying from 49 to 65 feet; the earthen ramparts of Willem
on the Geule, the not less important ones of Houlem, with many others
far away from the great highways of communication, but within the
limits of the two provinces of Liege and Limburg.[213]

A few years ago Bertrand said that there are in France some
four hundred earthen ENCEINTES, only sixty of which contain
relics connecting them with the Gallic Romans. Since Bertrand's
announcement this number has been greatly increased, thanks to eagerly
prosecuted local researches. De Pulligny mentions a hundred in Upper
Normandy[214]; Martinet says they are very numerous in Berry; one
of the most remarkable, the quadrilateral of Haute-Brenne, covered
an area of nearly three thousand acres.[215] Amongst the forests on
the Vosges Mountains were discovered long single and double walls,
the course of which follows the crest of the ramparts overlooking the
valley of the Zorn, between Lutzelbourg and Saverne.[216] At Rosmeur,
on Penmarch Point (Finistere), Du Chatellier excavated two tumuli
which appear to have been connected with a series of defensive works
encircling the whole promontory.[217] It would be merely fastidious
to multiply instances, we will content ourselves with describing a
few of the most interesting of these antique fortifications.[218]

The camp of Chassey (Saone-et-Loire) may be compared with those
of Belgium. It is situated on a plateau 2,440 feet long by a width
varying from 360 to 672 feet. A huge natural rocky barrier rises on
the south and east, whilst on the northeast and southwest we find
two important intrenchments made of huge blocks of stone with a
REVETEMENT of earth. One of these intrenchments is 45, the other
only 29 feet high. There is no trace inside of springs, and the
inhabitants must always have had to obtain their water-supply by
artificial means. The cisterns now in this camp appear to have been
dug out with iron implements, and are certainly of later date than
the first occupation of the plateau. Numerous objects picked up in
the Chassey Camp belong to Neolithic times, but the people who have
occupied it since those remote days, the men of the Bronze and Iron
ages, the Gauls, the Romans, and the Merovingians, have so turned over
the ground that products of industries, completely strange to each
other, are everywhere mixed together in inextricable confusion.[219]

There were originally a good many hearths about the camp, and it was
near to one of them that the spoon was found, figured in an earlier
chapter of this book (Fig. 25). With it were picked up polished
fibrolite, basalt, chloromelanite, serpentine, and diorite hatchets;
evidently made in the neighborhood, as is proved beyond a doubt by the
numerous chips and partly worked pieces lying about, as well as the
discovery of no less than thirty polishers, many of them showing signs
of long service. Bone implements of all kinds and whistles made of
the phalanges of oxen are also constantly found. Even if the presence
of these objects does not enable us to come to any final conclusion,
they are at least most useful and interesting in enabling us to put
together little by little a picture of the life of the most ancient
inhabitants of France.

The camp of Catenoy, Dear Liancourt (Oise) is arranged very much in the
same manner as that of Chassey.[220] CAESAR'S CAMP, as it is called
by the people of the neighborhood, forms a long triangle, the apex
of which rests on the eastern extremity of the plateau. Excavations
have yielded a number of Gallic-Roman objects, with some polished
hatchets, some broken, others intact, with stone and bone weapons,
resembling but for a few slight differences those we have described
so often. Numerous fragments of pottery were also picked up, which
pottery, hand-made and mixed with crushed shells, seldom has either
handles or any attempt at ornamentation. Weapons, implements, and
pottery are all alike totally different from any Roman or Gallic
work known. It is impossible to study the relics at Catenoy without
coming to the conclusion that the camp was occupied at periods prior
to Gallic and Roman times, and that there, as in many other districts,
the Latin conquerors had succeeded an unknown vanquished race.

De Quatrefages has accurately made out a series of works extending
along the left bank of the Nive, as far as Itsassou, and of which the
Pas-de-Roland marks the extreme limit. A merely superficial examination
is enough to show that these defences existed only on the side to which
access would otherwise have been easy, while the height overlooking
the river on the other side, which is impregnable by nature, has
been left untouched. Here too we find the name Caesar's Camp given
to the relics, a fact of common occurrence all over France, where
the great captain was long held in honor. Quatrefages is, however,
of opinion that the works are neither Roman, Gallic nor Celtic,
and he even arrives by a process of elimination at the conclusion
that they were erected by the Iberians, who preceded the Aryans, and
have left so deep an impress on all the countries they successively
occupied. We do not feel able to accept entirely this hypothesis;
but no suggestion of the eminent professor must be overlooked by
those who earnestly seek with unbiassed minds to ascertain the truth.

Gregory of Tours relates that at the time of the invasion of the
Vandals, the Gabali took refuge with their families in the CASTRUM
GREDONENSE, and there, for two years, energetically resisted the
invaders.[221] Greze, now a little market town of the department of
Lozere, is the CASTRUM of which the old French chronicler speaks,
and Dr. Prunieres there collected forty stone hatchets, differing
in no material respect from others found in such numbers elsewhere,
with flint knives and scrapers, bone stilettos, and millstones,
doubtless used for grinding grain, all of which are to the learned
French professor proofs of the existence there of a Neolithic station
before the historic period.

In the department of Alpes-Maritimes a series of defensive works
crown the circle of mountains which rise from the shores of the
Mediterranean. These intrenchments certainly date from a remote period,
though we cannot assign them to any definite time, and the fact that
they have been repaired at different epochs proves that they were
successively occupied.[222] They consist principally of circular or
elliptical ENCEINTES surrounded by walls of stones without mortar,
and they vary in diameter from some 39 to 328 feet. One of the largest
is that on the Colline des Mulets, above Monte Carlo.

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