Comment on Mallegni and Valassina's secondary bone changes to a cranium trepanation in a Neolithic man discovered at Trasano, south Italy

✍ Scribed by Shannon A. Novak; Christopher J. Knüsel

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 126 KB
• Volume: 7
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1047-482X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1212(199709/10)7:5<555::aid-oa361>3.0.co;2-5

✦ Synopsis

One of us has noted previously that the forensic sciences have a valuable contribution to make to the archaeological sciences, including those in the subdiscipline of osteoarchaeology. The possible trepanation with evidence of bone remodelling presented by Mallegni and Valassina provides a case in point. In this contribution we will present a differential diagnosis of the lesion noted by these authors, arguing instead that it bears resemblance to blunt-force cranial trauma that would have been fatal.

An individual identi®ed as the Trasano skeleton, dated to the mid-neolithic, was inferred to have survived cranial trepanation. A large ovoid opening at bregma was interpreted as being a healed trepanation and thus the earliest evidence of this intrusive procedure.

Trepanation is de®ned as the intentional surgical opening of the skull in a living person. These procedures share the following features: a bevelled external (e.g. entry) wound that is usually circular or ovoid in shape, evidence of scraping, grooving, or boring and cut-marks along the margins, or evidence of intersecting cuts made to