Skull reveals clues to Bronze Age surgical technique

THE skull of a Bronze Age man who is believed to have survived one of Britain’s oldest forms of surgery was being displayed yesterday.

Hi-tech carbon tests on the top half of an adult skull recovered from the River Thames at Chelsea in October show it dates back to 1750BC, English Heritage said.

It has a 45 mm by 30 mm hole in the top made by a gruesome procedure known as trepanation, where a portion of the bone was removed from a living and most likely conscious patient.