Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric PeoplesNadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
History
Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
Nadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
Archaeology; Prehistoric peoples
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. Prunières, 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.”22 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. Prunières, 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 Lozère 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.
Prunières 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. Prunières 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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