XPost: rec.arts.sf.written
In article <
kiftdgFg42dU1@mid.individual.net>,
Mark Jackson <
mjackson@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
On 7/27/2023 2:45 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
Questionable Content: No Trepanning Without The Proper Certs
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5099
I wonder if anyone survived trepanning in the Bronze age ?
Well, they're all dead now, so no.
Ah, but that's how we know that MANY people survived trepanning. They died, we have their skulls, and there's evidence of long-healed wounds in the bone.
Bones broken long before death, broken during the death, and broken
after death have differences that archaeologists and anthropoligists can use
to figure out stuff about the lives of the dead. For instance, healed breaks in leg bones are a strong indication that the individual was cared for by
their group so they didn't starve while the bones knit. Post-mortem damage that appears to be inflicted by tools rather than animals tells you something about the society (e.g. they felt that mutilating a corpse messed up the person's afterlife, perhaps).
Dave Van Domelen, also notes that trepanation doesn't really catch on in
a society where it's 100% fatal...
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