Bronze Age brain surgery removed a part of an elite man’s skull, new study shows
A Bronze Age skeleton, found in modern day Israel, shows signs of an invasive brain surgery, according to a new study. It may be one of the oldest cases ever found.
The study, published in PLOS ONE on Feb. 22, said two bodies were found buried with fine pottery at Megiddo, an archaeological site in the Jezreel Valley. The site dates back to 1550 B.C., during the Late Bronze Age, when the area was part of Egypt, and was the place where the community buried their upper class and elite.
Researchers used DNA testing to determine that the two were brothers, and each had extensive health concerns. The brothers likely had developmental delays and physical deformities, but due to their high social status, they weren’t ostracized from their community.
There was evidence of bone degradation and infectious lesions, potentially from tuberculosis or leprosy, the study said, and it meant moving would have been hard for the brothers.
Their disabilities would have made “routine movements or activities difficult. The developed nature of the lesions indicates that they were able to survive with the infection minimally for several years before death,” according to the study.
Bronze Age doctors tried an experimental solution.
The older brother, somewhere between the ages of 21 and 46, had a large square section of his skull removed from the front of his head, the study found.
Researchers believe the section was removed as a trephination, or brain surgery that cuts into the skull to relieve pressure on the brain. Today, the surgery is called “burr holes” and is used in extreme cases after a head injury causes bleeding in the brain.
In the Bronze Age, it was done on people with mental illness, epilepsy or migraines as a way to expel the spirits believed to be causing the damage of the mind, according to a 2011 study.
Because the man had developmental and physical disabilities, people at the time might have thought the trephination would cure him.
Researchers said that, based on the clues left behind on the skull, they believe the surgery was completed while the man was alive. The beveling on the skull suggests that the cut was made into living bone and the depth of the cut suggests those completing the surgery were trying not to go too deep and into a living brain. But there was no evidence of healing on the bone.
The man likely died during or soon after the surgery, as the front of his skull was chipped away and his brain was exposed.
The surgery was “an unusual and high-level intervention that indicates access to the services of a trained practitioner who administered this treatment shortly before death,” according to the study.
The researchers said the brother’s social status would have provided him access to such a unique treatment in the Late Bronze Age. Archaeological records of such a surgery are rare, and only five cases have been documented from the region.
“Thus, Megiddo’s case is the earliest of its kind in the region by at least several centuries,” researchers said in the study.
This story was originally published February 23, 2023 at 10:57 AM with the headline "Bronze Age brain surgery removed a part of an elite man’s skull, new study shows."
