Andean People Already Perfected Skull Surgery Thousands of Years Ago

Several trepanation holes were drilled over an area of mottled, inflamed bone. The surgery may have been done to alleviate the pain caused by serious infection. Photo: Danielle Kurin
Reserachers speculate that every time a patient died, the skull was donated to science – and was used for educational purposes. “The idea with this surgery is to go all the way through the bone, but not touch the brain,” said Kurin. “That takes incredible skill and practice.”

“As bioarchaeologists, we can tell that they’re experimenting on recently dead bodies because we can measure the location and depths of the holes they’re drilling,” she continued. “In one example, each hole is drilled a little deeper than the last. So you can imagine a guy in his prehistoric Peruvian medical school practicing with his hand drill to know how many times he needs to turn it to nimbly and accurately penetrate the thickness of a skull.”