Surgeons Drilled Into This Skull 7,000 Years Ago. The Patient Survived.

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Look at the hole in this skull. It was not made by a weapon. It was made by a doctor more than 7,000 years ago. This is the oldest surgery on Earth. They cut through the scalp and opened the living skull using tools made of stone and flint. And here is the part that should be impossible. The bone around the hole grew back. That only happens in a living body. The patient did not die. They healed. In ancient Peru, as many as eight out of 10 people survived this operation. 2,000 years later, surgeons in the American Civil War were still losing half of theirs. We have found these skulls on every inhabited continent. Some people survived it twice. A few survived it five times with five healed holes in their head. We still do not fully know why they did it.

[00:00:46]To treat a wound? To stop seizures? Or to let something out? Thousands of these skulls exist and almost everyone belonged to someone who got back up and walked away.