A Trepanned Skull of the Beaker Period from Dorset and the Practice of Trepanning in Prehistoric Europe

Abstract

The circumstances of the discovery of the trepanned skull described in this paper may be briefly summarised here: the full report of the excavations during which it was discovered will appear in a forthcoming volume of Archaeologia. In the summer of 1938 I carried out excavations on behalf of H.M. Office of Works on a group of round barrows on Crichel Down, Dorset, some 5 miles north of the town of Blandford. One of these barrows (no. 14 of the forthcoming report), a very low and inconspicuous mound about 20 feet in diameter, was found to cover a grave cut in the chalk containing a crouched human burial. The skeleton lay on its left side with the head bent slightly forward, the legs flexed so that the heels were nearly touching the pelvis, the left arm extended and the right arm flexed so that the hand rested on the shoulder. At the foot of the grave lay a beaker of Type B1 on its side, the base resting against the right tibia of the skeleton. (Fig. 1).The whole burial was entirely typical of Beaker Period inhumations, and it was not until the skull was removed from the grave that it was found that it bore a large opening in the left parietal, and that into that opening the piece of bone which had been removed (by a careful process of grooving and ultimate excision) had been replaced before the individual had been laid in the grave. We were clearly in the presence of an exceedingly fine example of trepanning, and two points were immediately apparent, namely that the individual had not survived the operation, there being no evidence of healing on the edge of the opening, and that the replaced roundel of bone must have been strapped or bandaged into place before burial. As the skull was lifted, the roundel remained behind on the floor of the grave, and in the original deposition of the body something must have been done to secure it in position.