Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Ancient skull suggests head reshaping practice

image: Unusual Paracas skull supposedly deformed by binding the growing  head of an infant. The resulting domed head was considered beautiful.  Photographed in the Museo Regional de Ica. - world-mysteries


ELEVEN thousand years ago a tall and solidly built Aboriginal man lived a hard life. His bones reveal he had multiple breaks in both forearms, a fractured ankle so severe his shin bones fused together and arthritis in his jaw.

''Death might have been something to look forward to for him,'' palaeoanthropologist Peter Brown said.

But since his skeleton, known as Nacurrie, was discovered in 1948, near Swan Hill on the Murray River, it has been the changes to his skull that have been of most interest to Professor Brown. ...

The skeleton of Nacurrie, which has been repatriated, suggests his skull shape was modified by subtle means, probably by massage from his mother's hands. Several other skulls found in the Murray-Darling area also had modified skulls.

''It is clear from the archaeological record that a group of people living on the Murray River used to do this … between 10,000 and 13, 000 years ago.''

Professor Brown said massaging the skull doesn't cause brain damage because the brain is a flexible organ. The practice was probably done for aesthetic reasons, but it wasn't known why it had stopped in Aborigines.

Nacurrie man's skeleton also shows Aborigines living 10,000 years ago were much bigger than those first encountered during European settlement. ''The average height for [Aboriginal] men when Europeans arrived was about 1.6 metres or less whereas 9000 years ago they were closer to 1.8 metres tall.''

Cranium manipulation was common throughout history in different cultures. By some reports, it was the most popular type of body modification after circumcision, said Professor Brown, whose findings are published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

In Papua New Guinea some mothers would bind their babies' heads with a tight bandage, which created a cone shape, while in South America babies were sometimes bound to create a flat-shaped head, he said.

''In the Netherlands and Denmark they used to put little caps on babies which used to change the shape of their heads. That was done until fairly recently.'' ...

via Ancient skull suggests head reshaping practice.

4 comments:

Alison Kerr said...

Pretty interesting stuff! I wonder if it affected the proportions of different areas of the brain and thus the behavior.

Xeno said...

Yes, with more room to grow it seems like the brain would grow to fit.... And what do you suppose all of that extra brain would be doing? These individuals could be like the queen bees of the human species with some abilities that would seem alien to us.

steve miller said...

You may be slightly mad, but just as stupid as the person who first responded. Tell me Mr. Scientist: if a homo sapien sapien's brain can only grow to a predetirmined c.c.; how is it that this skull seems to have more than twice the cranial capacity of the humans living currently and in their species' past? There is no concievable means, other than genetic modification, that would explain this. Either you, my friend, are a disinformist, or you have no idea what you're taking about. Please respond, I would love to pick your tiny little brain.

Xeno said...

No genetic modification is required, Steve. The bones in a human baby's skull are not completely hardened and the parts of the skull are not fused at birth. This trick allows us to fit through the mother's pelvic opening and still end up with big heads. If you wrap cloth around the skull of a newborn, you can make the head of the child elongate and it will then fuse and harden into the shape you see as the baby grows.

Big fan of your "jungle love," btw. ;-)