They unearthed her remains in silence—just bones and the echo of a life lived millennia ago. Yet in her skull, they discovered something astonishing: two separate surgical interventions, one overlaid atop the other, and evidence she survived them both. What can these millennia-old wounds tell us about our ancestors—and about human resilience itself?
A Scalp, A Stone, And Courage Beyond Measure
Imagine the scene: around 2500–2200 BCE, in what is now southeastern Spain, a woman in her mid-thirties to mid-forties lay on a rough mat of hides or reeds. There were no sterile clinics or anaesthetics, no scalpels or sutures—only sharpened stone tools, hands skilled by repetition, and perhaps herbal concoctions to dull pain or discourage infection.
Yet she did not perish under the blade. Instead, her skull records two overlapping “windows” carved through bone—trepanations, in technical terms—each with healed edges. In other words: she lived on after enduring not one but two cranial surgeries.
This remarkable story was first popularized by Good News Network, based on research published in the International Journal of Paleopathology. But since then, parallel coverage in scientific and popular media has helped confirm both the strangeness and the truth of her legacy.
The Archaeology Behind The Mystery
The skeleton came from Camino del Molino, a funerary site in Caravaca de la Cruz, used between approximately 2566 and 2239 BCE. Among 1,348 individuals excavated there, her skull stood out for its surgical marks.
On the right side of her skull—between the temple and the upper ear—scientists identified two overlapping apertures. The larger measured about 53 mm x 31 mm; the smaller, 32 mm x 12 mm. The edges were smooth and regular, not ragged like one sees in traumatic fractures, ruling out simple injury.
A closer morphological analysis suggests these holes were not drilled but scraped—a technique involving abrasion rather than forceful penetration. This method would have lowered the risk of sudden fractures or uncontrolled bleeding. Researchers propose that this “scraping” approach, while painstakingly slow, was safer in a world without modern medical care.
Most strikingly, bone growth around the perimeters of both holes shows healing. The second opening was carved into already-healed bone from the first procedure—implying she survived one surgery long enough to undertake another. The working hypothesis is that she may have lived months after the second intervention.
Why Would One Survive—And Why Be Operated Twice?
This is where the story becomes murkier, but more compelling. The prevailing theories revolve around two possibilities: trauma and therapeutic relief.
Supporters of the trauma hypothesis point to the high incidence of injuries among the remains at Camino del Molino. It’s plausible the woman suffered a blow to the skull or swelling within and that the surgeries aimed to relieve intracranial pressure, remove bone fragments, or drain fluid buildup.
On the other hand, the absence of radiating fractures suggests that these interventions were not necessarily tied to a single catastrophic injury. Some propose more chronic conditions—abscesses, infections, or peculiar pain syndromes—might have driven repeated surgical efforts.
One of the study authors, Sonia Díaz-Navarro, speculates that the surgeries were deliberate, controlled, and not ritualistic in nature. She explained that they identified two distinct holes from separate interventions and that the woman must have been strongly immobilized or sedated, perhaps using a psychoactive substance to dull pain.
She emphasizes that because the region targeted lies near sensitive blood vessels and soft tissues, trepanation here was exceedingly risky. Erosion by scraping, avoiding sudden penetration, would have been far safer than drilling. They also speculate that antiseptic plant compounds might have been used to ward off infection.
Yet it is nearly impossible to pin down a definitive reason. There is no known written record to tell her tale, no inscription or legend. What remains is bone and inference—but that is enough to spark wonder.
Echoes From Other Times — Surgery Beyond The Stone Age
This ancient case is not unique in the human archaeological record—even if it is unusually well documented.
In medieval Italy, for instance, scholars analyzed the skull of a woman from the early medieval period (Lombard era). Her remains revealed two trepanations: one, a cross-shaped incision revealing partial healing; the other, an unfinished scrape, possibly incomplete when she died. But in her case, only the first surgery shows signs of successful healing; the second seems to have been interrupted.
Broader surveys of trepanation from the Iron Age in Switzerland reveal survival rates as high as 78 %, based on studies of healed bones and comparative data. In Peru, within the last thousand years, multiple skulls show large bone defects in living individuals—suggesting patients lived with open “windows” in their skulls.
Each of these instances speaks to a sustained human impulse: to heal, to intervene, sometimes at great risk. The Spanish woman in Camino del Molino stands out precisely because she was treated twice, in exactly the same vulnerable region, and yet lived on.
More Than A Skeleton: Hope And Humanity Across Ages
We tend to view Stone Age peoples as stumbling toward rudimentary survival. And yet here is a story that disrupts that narrative. A woman—perhaps a mother, perhaps a community elder—was cared for with deliberate medical attention. She was immobilized (or sedated), treated with skill, and allowed to live, recover, and be integrated into the rituals of burial in her community.
In that sense, she becomes more than a skeleton: she is a bridge across time. Her body speaks to us of compassion, care, courage, and ingenuity. It whispers that even when our tools are primitive, our intentions may be noble.
Think of her not as a curiosity but as a mirror: what would we do, in her place? How far would we go to preserve the life of someone we love? Her surgeries, carved in stone, ask us to reflect on our own era’s medical miracles and the stakes we attach to life.
Her bones have outlasted time. In them, we find not just scientific data but a story of human endurance—of suffering, of hope, of persistence. And perhaps most poignantly: of the willingness of a community to try, again and again, to save her.
