Risky skull surgery done for ritual reasons 6,000 years ago

[Judi Lynn]

Risky skull surgery done for ritual reasons 6,000 years ago

Bone regrowth shows most survived operation to cut back-of-the-head holes

By Bruce Bower 7:00am, May 2, 2016


[font size=1]
RITUAL CUT An almost 6,000-year-old human skull from southern Russia contains a large opening at the back of the head created by cutting away bone with a sharp instrument. Researchers suspect many skull surgeries in southern Russia at that time were performed for ritual, not medical, reasons.
[/font]
Surgery has some surprisingly ritual roots.

Between around 6,000 and 4,000 years ago, skilled surgeons in southwestern Russia cut holes the size of silver dollars, or larger, out of the backs of people’s skulls. But the risky procedure wasn’t performed for medical reasons: These skull surgeries fulfilled purely ritual needs, a new study suggests. And those on the cutting end of the procedure usually lived.

Skulls of 13 people previously excavated at seven ancient sites in this region contain surgical holes in the same spot, in the middle of the back of the head, say archaeologist Julia Gresky of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin and her colleagues. That’s a particularly dangerous location for this kind of skull surgery, also known as trepanation, the scientists report online April 21 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. It’s not an area of the skull typically targeted in ancient trepanations, which go back roughly 11,000 years in West Asia.

“There may have been an original medical purpose for these trepanations, which over time changed to a symbolic treatment,” Gresky says.

Archaeologist Maria Mednikova of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow agrees that skulls in Gresky’s new study probably represent cases of ritual trepanation. She previously examined some of the same skulls. Trepanation may have been used in some ancient cultures as part of a rite of passage for people taking on new social roles, Mednikova speculates.

More:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/risky-skull-surgery-done-ritual-reasons-6000-years-ago

[bluedigger]

1. The operation was a success, but...

[Judi Lynn]

2. 6,000-year-old skulls unearthed in Russia show signs of ritualistic drilling

6,000-year-old skulls unearthed in Russia show signs of ritualistic drilling

And the patients often survived.

JOSH HRALA
6 MAY 2016

Back in the mid-1900’s, Portugese neurosurgeon Antonio Egas Moniz 'perfected' the lobotomy - a medical procedure that involved driving a stake into a patient’s prefrontal cortex to 'cure' various mental illnesses. Most of the time, these surgeries were carried out with an ice pick-like device without anaesthesia, leaving most patients brain-dead.

While lobotomies are unfortunately still fresh in our collective consciousness, the act of drilling a hole into someone’s skull isn’t new. In fact, based on a number of 6,000-year-old fossils recently uncovered in Russia, skull surgery might have been used in ritualistic practices long before humans even knew what mental illness was.

Researchers from the German Archaeological Institute have just released a report on the 13 skulls unearthed in southwestern Russia, describing the large holes drilled into the back of them.

It's thought they got there through a process known as trepanation - the surgical opening of the skull for religious or medical purposes. Now isolated to parts of Africa, South America, and Melanesia, trepanation was once a go-to practice for many ancient societies around the world.

More:
http://www.sciencealert.com/6-000-year-old-skull-shows-signs-of-ritualistic-skull-surgery-2