Taphophilia.(dot) Com - Skull fragment indicates surgery at Jamestown site

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Skull fragment indicates surgery at Jamestown site

Written by DeadGirl
Thursday, 09 December 2004
By Sonja Barisic Associated Press December 5, 2004 NORFOLK, Va. -- A skull fragment found in a 400-year-old trash pit at Jamestown contains evidence of the earliest-known surgery -- and autopsy -- in the English colonies in America, researchers say. Circular cut marks indicate someone attempted to drill two holes in the skull to relieve pressure on the brain, the researchers said. The patient, a European man, died and apparently was autopsied. Archaeologists found the 4-inch-by-43/4 -inch fragment this summer while digging in a bulwark trench on the site of James Fort. Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was founded in 1607 as a business venture. The skull piece was discarded with trash, such as pottery shards, from no later than about 1610, said Bly Straube, senior curator of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. "It was just being treated, I guess, like medical waste," she said Wednesday. In a surgery that was tricky but not unusual for the time, the surgeon tried to drill two holes in the skull using a device known as a trepan tool that would remove a plug of bone, Straube said. Saw marks on the top edge of the bone indicate an autopsy was performed, the researchers said. http://www.indystar.com/articles/3/199863-3103-010.html

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Taphophilia?

taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)

ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"

DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries