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Trepanation in Mesoamerica has been practised by a number of pre-Columbian cultures in the Mesoamerican region, dating from at least the mid-Preclassic era (ca. 1500 BCE), and continuing up to the late Postclassic, or ca. 1200 CE.〔See summary in Romero (1970).〕 Trepanation (also known as ''trephining'', ''trephinning'', or ''trepanning'') involves an intentional and planned operation to open or bore into the skull on a live subject, using tools specifically designed for the purpose. This can be accomplished by several techniques, such as drilling, incising and abrasion, or some combination of these. The purpose of such operations ranges from the medicinal (intended to relieve pressure, or address a number of other ailments) to the ritualised and experimental. In pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, evidence for the practice of trepanation and an assortment of other cranial deformation techniques comes from a variety of sources, including physical cranial remains of pre-Columbian burials, allusions in iconographic artworks and reports from the post-conquest period. ==Overview== Trepanation has been practised by a variety of historical cultures and societies across the globe, with evidence for it dating back to the Neolithic period,〔See Walker (1997), which reports the "earliest unequivocal evidence for trepanation" in a burial near Ensisheim in the Alsace region of France, that was dated to 5100–4900 BCE. See also citation and commentary in Tiesler (2003a).〕 and its use has continued up to the present era under certain limited circumstances by a few cultures. If the patient manages to survive the procedure, the bone begins to slowly grow back from the rim of the hole towards the center. This new bone growth is measurably thinner than the undamaged bone at the rim, providing scientists examining a trepanated skull with a means to establishing whether or not the person lived beyond the operation. Among New World societies, trepanation is most commonly found in the Andean civilizations such as the Inca,〔Tiesler (2003a)〕 where it is frequently associated with pre-existing cranial damage, indicating that it had a use as a reasonably-successful medical procedure— by one estimate, more than 70% of the patients survived the operation.〔Verano (1997), as cited in Tiesler (2003a). In this context, 'successful' is an assessment of the patient survival-rate, and not necessarily of its efficacy as a cure to a pre-existing ailment. Generally, whether or not the treatment was successful in alleviating the symptoms of the patient's medical complaint is difficult to ascertain from the osteological data.〕 Recently, anthropologists have discovered evidence which suggests that survival rates may have been as high as 80 to 90 percent.〔(Science News / Incan Skull Surgery )〕 Its prevalence among Mesoamerican civilizations is much lower, at least judging from the comparatively few trepanated crania which have been uncovered.〔Tiesler (2003a).〕 The archaeological record is further complicated by the practice of skull mutilation and modification which was carried out ''after'' the death of the subject, in order to fashion "trophy skulls" and the like of captives and enemies. This was a reasonably widespread tradition, illustrated in pre-Columbian art which on occasion depicts rulers adorned with or carrying the modified skulls of their defeated enemies, or of the ritualistic display of sacrificial victims. Several Mesoamerican cultures used a skull-rack (known by its Nahuatl term, ''tzompantli'' ) on which skulls were impaled in rows or columns of wooden stakes. Even so, some evidence of genuine trepanation in Mesoamerica (i.e., where the subject was living) has been recovered. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Trepanation in Mesoamerica」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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