Industry, Commerce, and Social Organization; Fights, Wounds and
Trepanation.
When we consider the discoveries connected with the Stone age as a
whole, we are struck with the immense numbers of weapons of every
kind and of every variety of form found in different regions of the
globe. The Roman domination extended over a great part of the Old
World, and it lasted for many centuries. Everywhere this people,
illustrious amongst the nations, has left tokens of its power and of
its industry. Roman weapons, jewelry, and coins occupy considerable
spaces in our museums; but numerous as are these relics of the Romans,
they are far inferior in number to the objects dating from prehistoric
times, and flints worked by the hand of man have been picked up by
thousands in the last few years, forming incontestable witnesses of
the rapid growth of a large population.
One important point remains obscure. Schmerling has excavated fifty
caves in Belgium, and only found human relics in two or three of them;
and of six hundred explored by Lund in Brazil, only six contained human
bones. Similar results were obtained in the excavations of the mounds
of North America, as well as in the caves of France. M. Hamy, in a
book published a few years ago, only mentions twelve finds of human
bones, which could, without any doubt, be dated from Palaeolithic
times. True, this number has been added to by recent discoveries,
but it is still quite insignificant. It is the same thing with the
kitchen-middings and the Lake settlements. This paucity of actual
human remains forms a gap in the evidence relating to prehistoric man,
which disturbances and displacements do not sufficiently account for,
and to which we shall refer again when speaking of prehistoric tombs.
Worked flints are generally found in numbers in one place, probably
formerly a station or centre of human habitation. Men were beginning to
form themselves into societies, and the dwellings, first of the family
and then of the tribe, rapidly gathered together near some river rich
in fish, or some forest stocked with game affording plenty of food
easily obtained. The caves also afford proofs of the number of men
who inhabited them. In one alone, near Cracow, Ossowski discovered
876 bone implements, more than 3,000 flint objects, and thousands
of fragments of pottery. From the Veyrier cave, near Mount Saleve,
were taken nearly 1,000 stone implements; from those of Petit Morin,
2,000 arrow-heads; from that of Cottes, on the banks of the Gartampe,
more than 264 pounds' weight of flints, some of the Mousterien and
others of the Madeleine type, mixed with the bones of the rhinoceros,
and of several large beasts of prey of indeterminate. species. The
Abbe Ducrost picked up 4,000 flints in one dwelling alone at Solutre,
where the soil is calcareous and flint is not native, so that it must
have been brought from a distance. More than 8,000 different objects
were taken from the fine Neolithic station of Ors in the isle of
Oleron; 12,000 chips of stone, bearing marks of human workmanship,
were picked up in the Thayngen Cave, and more than 80,000 in the
different caves of Belgium. The shelter of Chaleux alone yielded 30,000
pieces of stone, at every stage of workmanship, from the waste of the
manufactory to the highly finished implement. Other explorers have
been no less fortunate. The Marquis of Wavrin found in the environs
of Grez no less than 60,000 worked stones belonging to no less than
thirty different types, chiefly arrow-heads, some triangular, others
almond-shaped, others again cutting transversely, some with and some
without feathers, some stalked, others not; in a word, arrows of every
known type. Nothing but an actual visit to the Royal Museum of Brussels
can give any idea of the importance of the discoveries made in Belgium.
The environs of Paris are, however, no less rich. As early as
Palaeolithic times the valleys of the Seine and its tributaries were
evidently inhabited by a numerous population. M. Riviere mentions a
station near Clamart, where, in a limited space, he picked up more
than 900 flints, some worked, others mere chips, many of which bad
been subjected to heat. A sand-pit of Levallois-Perret yielded 4,000
stone objects, and on the plateau of Champigny, full of such terrible
memories for the people of France, were found nearly 1,200 flints,
knives, polished hatchets, lance heads and scrapers, mixed with
numerous fragments of hand-made pottery without ornamentation.
Are yet other examples needed? At. de Mortillet estimates at more than
25,000 the number of specimens found on the plateau of Saint Acheul,
the scene of the earliest discoveries that revealed the existence of
man in Quaternary times; and the station of Concise, on Lake Neuchatel,
which is one of the most ancient in Switzerland, yielded a yet more
considerable number. Many have, however, been lost or destroyed; the
ballast of the railway skirting the lake contains thousands of worked
stones and of pieces of the waste left in making them, all of which
were taken from the bed of the lake. It must not be forgotten that
it is only of late years that the importance of these relics of the
past has been recognized and that any one has dreamt of preserving
or of studying them.
The excavation of a gravel pit at Dundrum (County Down, Ireland)
yielded 1,100 flint implements, and M. Belluci himself picked up
in the province of Perouse more than 17,000 pieces, chiefly spear-,
lance-, or arrow-heads, belonging to six different types. The Broholm
Museum contains 72,409 weapons and implements, all found in Denmark.
We can quote similar facts in other countries. Prehistoric stations are
numerous in the Sahara and throughout the Wady el Mya, in Algeria,
and we have already spoken of the numerous specimens found near
Wargla. The workshops in this district are generally surrounded by
immense numbers of ostrich eggs, which seem to indicate that that
bird was already domesticated.[170]
In America, Dr. Abbott has sent to the Peabody Museum more than
20,000 stones, which were collected by him at Trenton, on the banks
of the Delaware, and quite recently I was told that in sinking a
well in Illinois the workmen came upon a deposit of more than 1,000
worked flints, all of oval form. Every one knows the importance of
the recent discoveries at Washington, and we might multiply examples
AD INFINITUM, for everywhere explorers come upon undoubted traces of
the active work and intelligence of comparatively dense populations,
all of whom had attained to about the same degree of development.
These numerous deposits often mark the, site of regular workshops,
tokens of the earliest attempt at social organization. In no other
way can we explain the piles of flints in every stage of workmanship
lying beside the lumps from which they were detached. One of the most
celebrated of these workshops is that of Grand-Pressigny, chief town
of the canton of the department of Indre-et-Loire, which is admirably
situated between two picturesque rivers, the Claise and the Creuse.
The flint implements of Grand-Pressigny, of which specimens can be
seen in all the museums of Europe, are some sixteen inches long, of
light color, pointed at one end and square at the other. One face is
rough, the other chipped into three oblong pieces, whilst the sides
are roughly hewn into saw-like teeth. If we examine these flints
closely we can easily make out the exact point, the EYE, as workmen
call it, where the stone was struck. At Charbonniere, on the banks of
the Saone, to quote other examples, in a radius of less than a mile,
were found weapons, tools, and nuclei, which may be compared with
those of Grand-Pressigny. In some places the collections of flints
still remaining look as if they had been used for road-making. In
some cases hatchets, knives, and scrapers seem to have been buried
in pits. Were these the reserve stores of the tribe, or the so-called
CACHES of the merchants?
It is difficult merely to name the different workshops or manufactories
discovered in the last few years. We must, however, endeavor to
mention the most important, for these workshops, we must repeat,
are an important proof of the existence of a society of organized
working communities. We meet with them on the shores of the bay
of Kiel, in the island of Anholt, in the midst of the Kattegat,
and on the borders of the Petchoura, and of the Soula, among
the Samoieds. Virchow discovered an arrow-head manufactory on the
shores of Lake Burtneek, and in 1884 the Moscow Society of Natural
Sciences made known the existence of important workshops near the
Vetluga River, in the province of Kostroma, so that we know that in
remote prehistoric times men lived and fought in a rigorous climate
in districts but sparsely populated in our own day.
There is nothing to surprise us in all these facts. Recently near the
Yenesei River, in the heart of Siberia, were found bronze daggers,
hatchets and bridle bits (Fig. 71), all bearing witness in the beauty
of their workmanship to a more advanced state of civilization than the
Lake Dwellings or megalithic monuments farther south. Many of them are
ornamented with figures of animals, so that at an epoch less remote,
it is true, than the one we have been considering, but still far
removed from our own, we find that there was an intelligent race,
with artistic tastes, living in a country now so intensely cold as
to be uninhabitable to all but a few miserable nomad Tartars.
At Spiennes, near Mons, a field was discovered, known as the CAMP
DES CAYAUX, strewn with flints, some uncut, others hewn, together
with knives and hatchets innumerable. There were also centres
of manufacture at Hoxne and Brandon, in England, at Bellaria in
Bologna, and at Rome on the Tiburtine Way. At Ponte-Molle, where
worked flints were discovered for the first time in Italy a few years
ago, a workshop was found, remarkable for the great number of stags'
antlers, from which the middle part had been removed, doubtless to be
used as handles for tools. M. de Rossi, who gives us these details,
thinks that this station was inhabited in the Paleolithic period. In
the settlement of Concise have been found not only stone implements,
but a great many articles made of bone, so that this place was
evidently an important manufacturing centre. Knives, stilettos, and
arrow heads were turned out here, and in the hands of skilful workmen
the tusks of the boars, which abounded at this time in Switzerland,
were converted into excellent chisels.
FIGURE 71
Bronze objects found at Krasnojarsk (Siberia).
To name the districts where tools were manufactured in prehistoric
times in France would be to give a list of all the departments. In
the commune of Saint-Julien du Saut we find a large manufactory where
every division of the Stone age is fully represented, from the time
of the simply chipped hatchet to that of the polished implement of
rare perfection. Everything bears witness to the prolonged residence
of man in a neighborhood which offered the attraction of vast
deposits of chalk with bands of flint that supplied alike weapons
and tools. Amongst others, we must name the so-called ATELIER DE LA
TREICHE, near Toul, which extends for an area of about a hundred acres,
that of Bonaruc, near Dax; surrounded by waste lands covered with a
scanty vegetation; that of Rochebertier (Charente), which probably
dates from the Madeleine period; and that of Ecorche-Boeuf, near
Perigueux. The Abbe Cochet tells us of an atelier in the Aulne valley,
and Maurice Sand of another near La Chatre, where we meet with the
most ancient traces of man in Berry. In the fields, near an alignment
not far from Autun, were picked up numbers of hatchets of bard rock,
barbed arrows, flakes of flint worked into scrapers or chisels, whilst
near them were the very polishers on which they had been pointed.
We have just spoken of polishers, and we said some time ago that it was
by prolonged rubbing that the remarkable weapons of Neolithic times
were produced. We must add now that a whole series of the polishers
used are to be seen on the right bank of the Loing, near Nemours;
one of which is a regular table (Fig. 72), on which can be made out
no less than fifty grooves and twenty-five cup-like depressions.
FIGURE 72
Prehistoric polisher, near the ford of Beaumoulin, Nemours.
One would have expected to find the ground near these polishers
covered with flakes of flint and pieces of tools of all kinds, but
nothing of the kind has been discovered; a fact which leads its to
suppose that the workmen only came down into the valley to finish
off their weapons by polishing them.
At the period we are considering all the continents were peopled,
and we must repeat, for it is the most important point of our
present study, that the civilization attained to by the inhabitants
was everywhere almost identical. Thus we find centres of manufacture
similar to those of Europe at the foot of the mountains of Tunis and of
Algeria. In one of the latter, at Hassi al Rhatmaia, the knives were
piled up in one place, the scrapers in another, and the arrow-heads
in a third. In this disposition M. Rabourdin thinks he sees a sign of
the division of labor, one of the most important features of modern
progress. M. Arcelin mentions a similar deposit on the summit of the
Jebel Kalabshee, near Esneh in Egypt, and a few years ago another was
found in Palestine, near the ancient Berytus, containing great numbers
of hatchets, saws, scrapers, and all the implements characteristic of
the Stone age; whilst amongst them lay the blocks from which they had
been cut. Asia Minor was evidently an important manufacturing centre
during the Stone age, and, as a matter of course, it must have had a
considerable population; and even in America discoveries of similar
extent have been made. At Kinosha, in Wisconsin, Lapham made out
a manufactory of flint and quartzite arrow-heads, which dates from
prehistoric times, and quite recently a yet more important centre of
industry has been discovered at St. Andrew (Winnipeg).
The manufactories of Spiennes and Brandon deserve special notice,
as they show us how our ancestors got the flint they used instead
of metal. At Spiennes,[171] the excavations were begun in the open
air, then the chalk containing the flint was reached by the sinking
of vertical shafts, many of which were as much as forty feet in
depth. These shafts were connected with each other by galleries running
in every direction, but always following the belts of flints. Cuttings
have brought to light the very implements of the ancient miners. They
were of the simplest description, such as picks made of stag-horn
and heavy stone hammers, all alike bearing marks of long service.[172]
Similar results were obtained in England. Canon Greenwell explored
near Brandon, in Suffolk, a series of 254 shafts, known in the
neighborhood as Grime's Graves. As at Spiennes, the shafts were
connected by galleries from three to five feet high, and one of
theta was twenty-seven feet long. The shafts and galleries had been
hollowed out with the help of picks exactly like those found in
Belgium; seventy-nine were picked up that had been thrown away by
the workmen.[173]
Some few years ago MM. Cartailhac and Boule discovered one of these
primitive quarries at Mur de Barrez, the chief town of the department
of Aveyron.[174]
They made out eight shafts in the face of a layer of limestone some
eighty-one feet long, and at every turn of their excavations they
came to fresh shafts. These shafts opened out towards the top like
funnels, and the), were not more than three feet three inches below the
surface, the flint having been struck at that depth (Fig. 73). These
shafts were, in many cases, continued by galleries, as seen in our
illustration (Fig. 74), or by trenches, where the light is, however,
more or less shut out by small landslips. It is still easy, in spite
of this, to make out the floor of the mine, for it is trodden hard by
the feet of the ancient miners. Traces of charcoal, too, reveal the
path they took, and we learn at the same time that they used fire to
help them in their work.
FIGURE 73
Section of a flint mine; T vegetable earth, C pure limestone, C M
Marly limestone, S flint.
M. Boule,[175] from whom we borrow these details, cannot restrain his
astonishment at the practical knowledge shown by these prehistoric
miners. He tells us that they sometimes left the flint standing
as pillars at pretty short intervals, or they propped up the
galleries with even more resistant material, cementing them with
clay or with calcareous earth taken from the detritus. In spite of
these precautions, landslips frequently occurred, and implements of
stag-horn (Fig. 75) have often been flattened by the fall of the roof
of the gallery. It is really curious to find implements of an exactly
similar kind used for exactly similar purposes at Spiennes, Brandon,
Mur de Barrez, and at Cissbury, to which, however, we shall have to
refer again. In the shafts of Aveyron, as in those of England, the
marks of blows of the picks are still to be seen, and in many cases a
flint or horn-pick point is still imbedded in the rock or limestone,
as if the miner had but just left his work.
FIGURE 74
Plan of a gallery, half destroyed in making the excavation which
revealed its existence. U gallery still visible; G' gallery destroyed
by the excavation.
In this last example of what has been done in France, we must also
add that of the shafts of Nointel (Oise) and those discovered in
Maine by M. de Baye, in both of which were found nodules of flint
in different stages of preparation, together with some stag-horn
picks. In none of these excavations was any metal implement found,
or any trace of the use of metal, so that we must conclude that the
mines date from Neolithic times.
We have seen how man gradually brought to perfection the tools and
weapons which were at first so clumsy. The growth of industry led
to the birth of commerce, or, to speak more accurately, to that
of barter. From the time of the earliest migrations intercourse was
begun, or rather was carried on, between the tribes, as they gradually
dispersed, often travelling considerable distances from each other,
and fresh proofs of these relations are continually brought to light as
we become better acquainted with prehistoric times. The flints worked
by the cave-men of Belgium, the fossil shells so numerous at Chaleux,
in the Frontal and Nuton caves, at Thayngen on the frontier between
Switzerland and Germany, in Italy, in the stations of anterior date to
the TERREMARE beds, have been found the shells of the pearl oyster of
the Indian Ocean, whilst in the caves of the south of France, such as
the Madeleine, that of Cro-Magnon, Bize in Herault, and Solutre on the
banks of the Saone have been picked up the shells of Arctic marine
mollusca. The cave-man of Gourdan was decked with shells from the
Mediterranean, and the man of Mentone in his turn wore a head-dress
made of Atlantic shells. Fossil shells were also much sought after;
we have alluded to those from Champagne found in Belgium; others from
the shell-marl of Touraine and Anjou had been taken into the caves of
Perigord, whilst sea-urchins from the cretaceous strata of the south of
France were found in a prehistoric station of Auvergne, and M. Massenat
picked up at Laugerie-Basse two specimens of a species not met with
anywhere but in the Eocene deposits of the isle of Wight. The Neolithic
station of Champigny, near Paris, has yielded some objects from the
Alps, and from Belgium, from the Vosges Mountains, and the Puy de Dome.
FIGURE 75
Picks, hammers, and mattocks made of stag-horn.
In the caves of Perigord were also found fragments of hyaline quartz,
which must have been brought from the Alps or the Pyrenees. In Brittany
and in Marne flints foreign to these granite districts are numerous;
and Dr. Prunieres tells us that similar discoveries were made under
the megalithic monuments of France, and that neither in the eroded
limestone districts of Lozere, known locally as LES CAUSSES, nor under
the dolmens of Haute-Vienne, were found any but implements made of
rock not native to the country.
Hatchets, daggers, and nuclei, or as they are characteristically
called by the country people LIVRES DE BEURRE, from Grand-Pressigny,
have been picked up in the bed of the Seine, at Limagne in Auvergne,
in Brittany, at Saint Medard near Bordeaux, on the banks of the Meuse,
and even as far north as the Shetland Islands. At Concise was found
red coral from the Mediterranean, whilst the yellow amber of the
Baltic was picked up in the Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, beneath
the dolmens of Brittany, in sepulchral caves, such as those of Oyes
(Marne) or Lombrives (Ariege), beneath the megalithic tomb of La
Roquette, at Saint Pargoue (Herault) beneath the dolmen of Grailhe
(Gard), at Malpas, and at Baume (Ardeche).[176] These are nearly all
Neolithic tombs, though some few of them may date from the beginning
of the Bronze age; but the cave-men of France owned amber even
earlier than this, for five fragments have been found in the Aurensan
Cave near Bagneres-de-Bigorre, which was inhabited in Palaeolithic
times. Jadeite and nephrite[177] are met with in the Lake Dwellings
of Switzerland and Bavaria, as in the caves of Liguria and Sardinia;
chloromelanite[178] in France, and obsidian[179] in Lorraine, in the
island of Pianosa and in the Cyclades. We have already spoken of the
calaite[180] found beneath the dolmens of Brittany, and we may add
now that it has also been found in the caves of Portugal and beneath
the megalithic monuments of the south of France.
Commerce developed rapidly during Neolithic times, and, as far as we
can make out from traces left, its course was from the southeast to
the northwest. Streams and rivers were followed by merchants as by
emigrants, and at an extremely remote date the sea no longer arrested
the journeys of men. At a recent meeting of the British Anthropological
Institute, Miss Buckland dwelt on the resemblance in the material,
shape, and ornamentation of a golden cup found in , Cornwall, to other
cups found at Mykenae and at Tarquinii, and maintained that the Cornish
cup must have been the work of the same artisans, and have been brought
by commerce from what was then the extremity of the known world.
It is not only in Europe that we can trace the relations established
between men separated by vast distances, by oceans, and by apparently
impassable deserts. The shells of the Atlantic and those of the
Pacific, the copper of Lake Superior, the mica of the Alleghanies,
and the obsidian of Mexico lie together beneath the tumuli of Ohio,
and quite recently Mr. Putnam exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries
a collection of jade celts and ornaments, some from Nicaragua,
others from Costa Rica, and a hatchet with both edges sharpened
from Michigan. No deposit of jade has so far been discovered on the
American continent, so that we can only suppose these objects to have
been brought from Asia at an unknown date. The marks they retain of
having been rubbed up, and the holes made in them to hang them. up,
show what store was set by them.
Monuments of many kinds scattered over different countries, weapons
and implements, relics as they are of a remote past, enable us to gain
a closer insight into the manners, customs, and mode of life of our
ancestors of the Stone age. We can picture their daily life, which we
know to have been one long struggle, without break or truce, for they
had to contend, not only with wild animals but with each other, to
fight for the use of their caves of refuge, for their hunting fields,
and for their watercourses; and later, the first shepherds had to
do battle for the pasturage necessary for their flocks. It is only
too certain that, from the earliest dawn of humanity, men gave way,
without any effort at self-control, to their brutal passions. The
right of the strongest was the only law, and wherever man penetrated
his course was marked by violence and by death. One of the femora of
an old man was found in the celebrated Cro-Magnon Cave, bearing a deep
depression caused by a blow of a projectile, and on the forehead of
the woman that lay beside him is a large wound made by a small flint
hatchet (Fig. 76). This gash on the frontal bone penetrated the skull,
and was probably the cause of death, but not of sudden death, for
round about the wound are marks of an attempt at healing it.[181]
According to Dr. Hamy, many of the bones found in the Sordes Cave
have very curious wounds. A gaping hole on the right parietal of a
woman must have been a terrible wound (Fig. 77). The woman of Sordes,
like that of Cro-Magnon, must have survived for some time; the marks
of the removal of splinters of bone, which can quite easily be made
out, leave no doubt on that point.[182]
FIGURE 76
Cranium of a woman, from Cro-Magnon, seen full face.
In the Baumes-Chaudes caves, situated in that part of the valley of
the Tarn which belongs to the department of Lozere, Dr. Prunieres
picked up numerous bones bearing scars, characteristic of wounds
produced by stone weapons.[183] Some fifteen of these bones, such as
the right and left hip bones, tibiae, and vertebrae, still contain
flint points flung with sufficient force to penetrate deeply the
bony tissue. Always indefatigable in his researches, Dr. Prunieres
also mentions having found in the cave known as that of L'HOMME MORT
bones bearing traces of cicatrized wounds, and he presented to the
Scientific Congress at Clermont a human vertebra found beneath the
Aumede dolmen pierced with an arrow-head, which is, so to speak,
encased in the wound by the formation of bony tissue.
FIGURE 77
Skull of a woman found at Sordes, showing a severe wound from which
she recovered.
Of the nineteen crania found in the Neolithic sepulchre of Vaureal
two show traces of old wounds. One of them, that of a woman, has
three different scars, two of which were of wounds that had healed,
whilst the third in the occiput was a gaping hole, which had evidently
caused death.
A sepulchral cave at Nogent-les-Vierges (Oise) contains the skeleton
of a man with a wound on the forehead, no less than four and a half
inches long by three broad. This man, who was dune young, the sutures
being still very apparent, survived this serious wound for some time.
The Gourdan Cave has yielded crania and jaws broken by blunt weapons,
whilst on other crania have been made out scratches and stripes
which could only have been produced after the hair and skin had been
removed. In the caves of the Petit-Morin valley, M. de Baye picked
up some human vertebra pierced with flints, the points of which were
still imbedded in the bones. In the Villevenard Cave one skull was
found containing three arrow-beads with transverse points imbedded in
the skull, the bone of which had closed upon them. Another arrow was
lodged between the dorsal vertebrae. It is probable that these arrows
had remained in the wounds; certainly that is the simplest way to
account for their position. About two miles from the caves of which
we have been speaking, M. de Baye discovered a sepulchre containing
thirty skeletons, all of adult and strongly built individuals. The
bodies were laid one above the other, and separated by large flat
stones and a thin layer of earth. This sepulchral cave contained
seventy-three flint points. As in the case of Villevenard, their
position leads us to suppose that these points had been sticking in
the flesh of the bodies when they were interred, and had fallen out
when decomposition set in. Probably the bodies were those of men who
had fallen victims in a bloody conflict that had taken place in the
valley. In a cave at the station of Oyes, was found stretched upon a
bed of stones a skeleton with a piece of flint, which had been flung
with great force, imbedded in the upper part of the humerus. Round
about the wound are the marks of many attempts at healing it.
Many of the human bones found in the Vivarais Cave bear traces
of having been violently fractured by stone weapons with tapering
points. In the Challes Cave (Savoy) lies the skeleton of a woman
whose skull was fractured by a flint weapon, but in this case death
was evidently immediate, at least if we may judge from the fact that
there are no signs of the wound having received any treatment. In the
Castellet Cave, a human vertebra contained the weapon which had pierced
it, but when the bone was touched the arrow-head broke off. It had,
however, been flung with such a sure hand that it had been driven
ten inches deep into the bony tissue. Here, too, the absence of any
exostosis proves that death quickly followed the wound.
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.
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.