A Bioarcheological Study of a Trepanation Case with Special Reference to the Medical Care System during the Western Zhou Dynasty China (1045–771 BCE)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Therapeutic craniotomy is a kind of artificial trepanation used for treating head injuries. In this study, a skull with signs of trauma and trepanation from a young adult female who lived 3,000 years ago was assessed in the context of medical care systems and a policy of benevolence during the time. A blunt force assault on the left temporal bone induced a depression fracture and possibly an intracranial hematoma. It is believed that an artificial craniotomy was applied as a post-trauma procedure to treat the head injury. The healing signs at both the fracture area and the trepanation suggest that the patient survived both assault and craniotomy for a period. This successful case of advanced neurosurgery on a commoner during the Western Zhou Dynasty is revolutionary: it not only confirms the antiquity of artificial craniotomy as a therapeutic procedure for injuries but also provides bioarchaeological evidence of medical systems within ancient China. This case corroborates written records of institutional efforts to assign medical resources to care for commoners during the Zhou Dynasty.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36486.0