Free Republic

Incan skull surgery By Bruce BowerApril 25th, 2008 Holes in ancient skulls reflect skilled medical careHealing Hole in the HeadANCIENT SURGERY A new analysis of ancient skulls reveals skills of Incan healers in cranial cutting.Valerie AndrushkoWhen Incan healers scraped or cut a hunk of bone out of a person’s head, they meant business. Practitioners of this technique, known as trepanation, demonstrated great skill more than 500 years ago in treating warriors’ head wounds and possibly other medical problems, rarely causing infections or killing their patients, two anthropologists find. Trepanation emerged as a promising but dangerous medical procedure by about 1,000...

Archeologists in Sarpsborg have found one thousand year old skeletal remains that appear to be Incan. The skeletal remains were found during conservations work at St. Nicolas church in Sarpsborg, a city 73 kilometers (45 miles) southeast of Oslo, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports. When archeologists were to move some rose bushes they made the surprising discovery of the remains of two older men and a baby. "When we were about to take hold under the rose bush the skeletal remains slid out. It was quite surprising," Mona Beate Buckholm, archeologist at the Borgarsyssel Museum, told NRK. One of the skulls...