I'm familiar with trepanning and this is the official explanation when encountered.

There were hundreds of skulls, most holes in similar spots. I doubt trepanning was that commonly needed or performed. These skulls were quite old and the number of them would seem to discount surgeries or possessions. I didn't see any signs of wounds that had healed as I can recall.

According to the authors of a 2011 case study, “medieval surgical trepanations are much less common and only a few cases are known for the whole of Europe.”

i think a close study would find the fall of the practice to be correlated to the end of popular cannibalism. (See Abraham/Isaac and David vs Goliath for biblical references of trends ending)

I have to say I lived through the sixties and don't remember any so-called trend of trepanning.

If you got that from this article, I don't consider it to be academic in any way.

https://sshm.org/bore-holes-trepanation-and-subjectivity-in-sixties-britain/

Note the statement: "A few minutes later, Huges had completed the first documented self-trepanation of the twentieth century."

How do they know that? And if it was the first, where's the 'trend' I don't recall hearing anything about.

I'm thinking that like many if not most 'historic news', this is an attempt to divert from inconvenient truths.....like the fact cannibalism was common in the distant past. Another reason why these 'surguries' weren't kept up.

What if they simply lie to cover this fact? it would be a simple thing to fake. While it seems 'reasonable' in some backwards way, it would not have worked the majority of the time, so how did it get so popular and widespread? I'm sure experimentation existed on all levels, but this explanation of it as unscientific science seems lacking.

A good question to ask might be "If these skulls are all the result of surgical trepanning, where are all the skulls cannibals bored into to get the sauce?"

Anubis guards the secrets and It's all about the sauce.