How 5 Ancient Cultures Literally Reshaped the Human Skull

In 1927, Peruvian anthropologist Julio Tello was hiking through the Andean foothills when he stumbled upon a cave. Inside, he found a mass burial site with hundreds of skeletons enrobed in ornate textiles. Upon excavation, Tello discovered the skulls of these ancient people were incredibly elongated. Images of those skulls have been fodder for alien conspiracy theorists ever since. But these shaped heads were far from alien.

The skeletal remains came from the Paracas culture that lived between 750 B.C and A.D. 100. Like many Andean cultures, the Paracas practiced artificial cranial modification, the intentional reshaping of an infant’s skull. Though the oblong skulls of the Paracas may seem uncanny today, cranial modification has been practiced in cultures around the world for millennia. “It’s a very, very ancient practice,” says Vera Tiesler, an anthropologist at the Autonomous University of Yucatán in Mexico. “It’s worldwide in global history.”

In order to pass through the birthing canal, infants are born with malleable skulls, and their cranial bones don’t harden until around two years of age. Tiesler theorizes the practice originates from infants kept in cradles that flattened the backs of their heads. Parents may have realized that the shape of their infants' skulls was pliable and developed preferences for different shapes.

Infants' skulls were shaped through splints, bandages, headboards or massages. In most cases, Tiesler says, mothers and midwives knew what they were doing and the cranial shaping was not painful or harmful for the child. Other studies have found the practice generally does not affect the health or cognitive ability of the infant.

The earliest known example of potential cranial modification dates to 45,000 years ago. Scientists discovered two Neanderthal skulls from the Shanidar Caves of Iraq that seemed to have been intentionally modified.

Time and time again, archaeologists and anthropologists have found examples of skull shaping. Here are four other ancient cultures that practiced cranial modification.

Tiesler says that some of the most well-known cranial modifications are found among Andean communities of South America. The practice was diverse and widespread among pre-Columbian cultures, and examples date back to about 4,500 years ago from the Chinchorro culture in southern Peru and northern Chile.

The Paracas skulls from southwest Peru show a huge diversity of shapes, some elongated, conical or heart-shaped. Many of these shapes were obtained by strapping hard boards to the infant’s skulls’ at different angles. Anthropologists theorize various skull shapes likely signified different social groups, although specific meanings are unclear.

The Callagua culture, which dates to A.D. 1100 to 1450 in the highlands in southern Peru, shaped their heads to resemble the mountains sacred to their culture. According to one account from a 16th-century Spanish scribe, the Callaguas fashioned their heads to pay homage to Collaguata, the volcano believed to be their ancestral home. Anthropologist Matthew Velasco theorizes shaping the skulls also conferred a social advantage, where people with shaped heads were entitled to land and resources.

In 2011, archaeologists began excavating the Houtaomuga site in northeastern China. There, they found 11 out of 25 skeletons had clear signs of cranial modification. Remarkably, the skeletons date between 5,000 to 12,000 years ago, suggesting the head shaping was a longstanding tradition.

The skulls exhibited different shapes but were most commonly flattened in the front and back. Since head-shaping was found in some skulls and not others, researchers hypothesize the practice was used to delineate family groups or socioeconomic status. A 3-year-old with a modified skull was buried with pottery and other artifacts, and a woman was buried with shell ornaments, suggesting that head-shaping was practiced by wealthy families.

Artificially modified skulls are found across Mesoamerica, and one of the best-studied groups is the Maya. Tiesler, who specializes in Maya body modification, says the rationale for cranial modification was multifold.

Babies had their heads strapped in cradleboards, says Tiesler, and the apparatus was believed to protect the child and was seen as a rite of passage. “The occipital [back] part was considered dangerous or pernicious,” she says. “They very much endeavored in shortening the skulls and eliminating the occipital.” Once the child was old enough to graduate from their cradleboards, they were considered welcomed into the community. Covering and shaping the fontanelles—or the soft parts of the skull—was also believed to prevent the child’s soul from escaping.

Another theory posits Maya may have shaped their heads to mimic their creation myth, in which gods shaped humans out of maize. “There’s a big corpus in the literature and iconography that shows gods shaping heads and making humans,” Tiesler says. Lastly, skull shapes seem to correlate to different language groups across Mesoamerica, so the differently shaped skulls could have been a cultural signifier. While the practice mostly stopped with Spanish colonization, Tiesler says some women in rural parts of Mexico still practice cranial modification.