ABSTRACT
Recent osteological research on a corpus of approximately 800 skeletons from the cemetery complex of Aymyrlyg, Tuva, southern Siberia, has revealed evidence for a number of crania with human-induced perforations (Murphy, 1998). Merbs (1989) has provided a comprehensive overview of the possible aetiologies for cranial perforations, which includes weapon injuries, genuine and practice surgery, taphonomic processes and various palaeopathological conditions. It can, however, be extremely difficult to interpret the cause of a particular cranial perforation and both healed and unhealed trepanations, for example, may be confused with other phenomena. Bearing this in mind, the following paper will present the osteological characteristics associated with each of the different categories of cranial perforation evident among the Scythian period population from the
cemetery of Aymyrlyg. In addition, a number of interpretations will be proposed to explain each class of perforation evident in this population.
