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A new study suggests that a prehistoric practice of removing part of the skull to relieve pressure in the brain could prevent half of deaths from traumatic brain injury. Trepanning is the oldest surgical technique ever found in archaeological records. So how it was done thousands of years ago, and why? Professor Peter Hutchinson from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Cambridge University is the author of the study; he told Dan Damon about his research. (Picture: Mediaeval surgeon performing a trepanning operation on a patient's skull, circa 1350. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)