Ancient Neurosurgeries: A History on How Trepanations Were Performed

Today, surgery is one of the front runners in the medical world for performed practices. However, surgery isn't a modern day miracle. Surgeries have been taking place for centuries, and at the head of those surgeries are trepanation and craniotomies. In fact, the oldest surgical techniques known to be used by primitive people are those techniques used to cut holes into the cranium. Early trepanation and craniotomies were mainly performed by abrasion, scraping, crosscut sawing and drilling techniques. Knowledge like this is in high demand as we try to make new leaps into medicine. Many accomplishments of the present come with an understanding and knowledge of the past, and while that is not the focus of this paper, it is an acknowledged contribution. Through numerous archeological findings, a new field of anthropology called “cultural osteology” has found its way into the limelight allowing for thousands of new research projects to shed light on what little we know about anatomical heritage. Among the advancements into the past we've made, research has demonstrated that Sirkaks, Inca surgeons, were able to perform craniectomies. These trepanations have been dated back long before the arrival of Spanish Conquistadors which leaves the reasoning for trepanation to be somewhat theorized. Of the things we are sure of, the Inca Sirkaks are among the most successful surgeons of that era. Archeologists are somewhat surprised that such success in trepanation did not find its way into the Spanish Empire upon their conquest. In the heart of the Inca Empire, Sirkaks performed trepanation with a survival rate of between fifty to seventy percent.1 But with a survival rate of fifty to seventy percent, something insurance companies would cringe at, what need did Incas have during this era to perform such surgeries? There are a number of reasons one might perform trepanation whether it be for a craniotomy, cranioplasty, or if you were one of our Paleolithic ancestors, you