Trephination (also known as trepanning or burr holing) is a surgical intervention

where a hole is drilled, incised or scraped into the skull using simple surgical tools.
In drilling into the skull and removing a piece of the bone, the dura mater is
exposed without damage to the underlying blood-vessels, meninges and brain.
Trephination has been used to treat health problems associated with intracranial
diseases, epileptic seizures, migraines and mental disorders by relieving pressure.
There is also evidence it was used as a primitive form of emergency surgery to
remove shattered pieces of bone from fractured skulls after receiving a head
wound, and cleaning out the pools of blood that would form underneath the skull.

FIRST CASES OF TREPHINATION

Evidence for trephination occurs from prehistoric times from the Neolithic
periodonwards. The main pieces of archaeological evidence are in the forms of
cave paintings and human remains; the skulls themselves from prehistoric times. It
is the oldest surgical procedure for which we actually have archaeological
evidence. At one site in France, burials included forty instances of trephination
from around 6500 BCE; one third of the skulls found at the site. The percentage of
occurrences there though is fairly high and percentages largely differ between sites
and continents. It is from the human remains found at such sites that we know that
the surgery had a fair survival rate. Many skulls show signs of healing and indicate
that the patient lived for years after the event, even sometimes having trephination
performed again later in life and again surviving the experience.