Ancient Chinese Graves Reveal Evidence of Early Skull Reshaping
Humans may have compressed infants’ soft heads with their hands, bound them between boards or wrapped them tightly in cloth
Modified skulls (seen on the left in each box) versus unmodified skulls (Zhang et al.)
By Meilan Solly
SMITHSONIAN.COM
JULY 5, 2019
Human skeletons unearthed at the Houtaomuga archaeological site in northeast China represent some of the earliest evidence of intentional skull reshaping, a new study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology reports.
As Bruce Bower writes for Science News, 11 modified skulls, excavated alongside 14 skeletons with unmodified craniums between 2011 and 2015, have artificially elongated braincases and flattened bones at both the front and back of the head. Per the study, five of the skulls belonged to adults (four men and one woman), and six belonged to children. Ages ranged from as young as 3 years old to as old as 40. Of the skulls, one was found in a layer of sediment dating to around 12,000 years ago, while the remaining 10 were found in sediment dating to between 6,300 and 5,000 years ago.
As Science Alert’s Michelle Starr explains, intentional cranial modification (ICM), also known as artificial cranial deformation, has been practiced around the world for millennia, albeit for a number of different reasons. Some cultures likely participated in skull reshaping as an indicator of social status, wealth and power, while others may have inadvertently modified infants’ heads by binding them to protect during growth.
The earliest-known example of ICM was long assumed to be a pair of 45,000-year-old Neanderthal skulls found in Iraq and formally described in 1982, but these findings have since been questioned, and several 13,000-year-old Australian skulls are now viewed as more likely candidates for oldest specimens identified to date.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-chinese-graves-reveal-evidence-early-skull-reshaping-180972570/#aC5jDOHs66vboizt.99
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