Why did ancient peoples cut holes in their heads?
The Woman of Pritschoena died around 4,500 years ago in what's now Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Her skeleton was discovered in 1913 by a local archaeologist. Thanks to being buried in a gravel pit, her remains are exceptionally well preserved.
The Woman's skull is a fine example of trephination - the practice of deliberately cutting holes in the skull. She was trephined not once but twice, as you can see in the images above taken from a paper just out. In both cases, the skull around the hole shows clear evidence of healing, which shows that the Woman must have survived the procedures.
Trephination is a historical mystery. Stone-age peoples around the world were fond of doing it - trephinations have been found on skulls from Europe, the Americas and Asia. The authors of this paper say that there are records of at ...
