New evidence unearthed in Peru demonstrates that ancient healers performed trepanation — a surgical procedure that involves removing a section of the cranial vault using a hand drill or a scraping tool — more than 1,000 years ago to treat a variety of ailments. Excavating burial caves, University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) bioarchaeologist Danielle Kurin and her research team unearthed the remains of 32 individuals, and among them, 45 separate trepanation procedures were in evidence. “When you get a knock on the head that causes your brain to swell dangerously, or you have some kind of neurological, spiritual or psychosomatic illness, drilling a hole in the head becomes a reasonable thing to do,” said Kurin, a visiting assistant professor in the department of anthropology at UCSB. Click here to read the full article.