Signs of trauma in an adult parietal bone exhumed from a Portuguese prehistoric collective burial.

A fragment of parietal bone from an adult individual of unknown sex exhumed from the collective burial of Praia da Samarra (Sintra, Portugal), dated to the end of the Neolithic, presents signs of different types of trauma. These include thinning of the skull vault and incisions marks. Differential diagnoses for these alterations are discussed: for the first one, depressed skull factures is the most likely cause. For the incisions, trepanation (more probable) and trauma due to a sharp force are proposed. These hypotheses are also discussed in terms of other similar findings from coeval Portuguese collective burials.