A very neatly trephined female Tarahumare/Rarámuri skull. Source

'Trephin' is another word for 'trepan'. The precision of the removal hole in this Tarahumare/Rarámuri skull suggests advanced surgical skills:

Highly advanced surgical skills. Source: Continuum

In Trephining in Mexico, American Anthropologist, 1897, pp 389-396, authors Carl Lumholtz and Aleš Hrdlička say:

One would expect that trephining among the Tarahumares would have been done in the most primitive way, by scraping; but the almost circular form of the opening, and its perpendicular walls, which show no signs of beveling, do not admit of this conclusion. The senior author has never found among the Tarahumares any implement which afforded a suggestion that it had been used for such an operation. At present they do not use any stone implements except plowshares

Lumholtz and Hrdlička suggested the Tarahumares/Rarámuri had subsequently lost their trepanning skills.

That's one explanation.

Regardless, the Tarahumares/Rarámuri have not the lost their long-distance running skills.

Or at least, those that survived haven't.

Lumholtz and Hrdlička also noted the shape of her nose bone:

Trephined Tarahumare female skull from the side. Source

From Trephining in Mexico:

The nasal bridge is rather low and very concave.

We've seen that bridge-of-the-nose shape before:

Faces reconstructed from skulls found in Carsington cave, England. Source: Time Team Carsington, Derbyshire S10 Ep03

The Carsington cave bodies were apparently disarticulated - butchered - by something other than humans.

Perhaps the Tarahumares were also being trepanned by something other than humans. Something with highly advanced surgical skills.

Many trepanned skulls show the victim survived the operation.

From Presentation of the Trepanned Skull Labelled MO-90:

Surgical skull trepanation is known on almost every continent

Despite the fact that it is a complicated, life-threatening procedure, more than a half of patients survived for a long time.

3⁄4 of 130 [Hungarian] trepanation cases were men

94% of [Hungarian] trepanations occurred on the forehead (os frontale) and on the frontal part of the parietal bone (os parietal), in 3⁄4 of the cases on the left side of the skull. This suggests that the trepanation was preceded by traumatic injury (assault).

So trepanning was either a form of medical care or victims were prepared for the operating table - the altar - with a blow to the head:

...the trepanation was preceded by traumatic injury. Video source: Westworld S01 Ep10

Perhaps the high survival rate tells us trepanning wasn't always about healthcare or eating choice sweetmeats:

Crack 'em open. Source: Westworld S02 Ep05

More:

See Cruel experiments (Russian), Andrey Sklylarov, about 3/4 through the text (English translation)

The Tarahumara/Rarámuri's home state of Chihuahua also offers many geology clues to a different version of humanity's history.

Possible Tarahumara/Rarámuri area of origin.

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