Skull trepanation

Materials and methods. In 2017, the archeological excavation at mound No. 26 of Verbovsky I burial
ground in Kalachyovsky district, in the Volgograd region, resulted in a find in the burial of the middle Sarmatian
times (the I–II centuries AD) of a 35–45 year-old woman’s cranium with three holes in the parietal-occipital
part. According to the dig author, the buried woman came out of the well-off section of the Sarmatian
confederation. The accompanying items in the burial are quite expressive and includes a weapon of war (a
tip of a spear) and, at the same time, a set of some objects (beads, shells, pendants made of ceramics
fragments, chalk and bronze), which, indeed, allows to make an assumption that the woman also performed
hieratic functions. The description of the defects fixed on the cranium from the Verbovsky burial ground was
made with the use of recommendations suggested in the works by M.B. Mednikova (1997, 2001). A
computerized tomography scan method was used during the differential diagnostic procedure. Scanning
was made by Siemens Somatom Definition 128-slice computed tomography scanner with two X-ray tubes.
Results. The perforation examination let state that the defects are burr holes created by drilling. The
absence of healing marks displays antemortem or postmortem character of operations. Previous studies of
the problems and reasons of widespread postmortem trepanation performed by the Eurasian ancients have
been analyzed. It allowed us to determine that the performing type of trepanation of the cranium from Verbovsky
I burial ground has some analogies with the middle and late Sarmatian burials in the Lower Volga river
region, and also in the memorials of the Western and Central Kazakhstan of the V–III centuries B.C. The
origins of the postmortem trepanation custom should be searched for in the ancients of Central and Soviet
Central Asia living on that territory from the VIII to I century BC.
Discussion. The operations on the cranium of the woman found in the Verbovsky burial are of ritual and
symbolic importance. However, it is quite difficult to determine the type of a ritual or tradition which laid as the
background for these artificial manipulations with a human cranium. It can be a preparation procedure during
mummification and embalming of a dead body or preparation of a dead body for burial or long-term storage,
payment of an unpaid debt; a ritual plunder and wrecking aimed at “locking” a decedent-persona non grata, etc.