Foerster - Elongated Skulls Of Peru And Bolivia: The Path Of Viracocha

This work would in no way be possible without the expertise, wisdom and adventurous spirit of Sr. Juan Navarro Hierro, director of the Paracas History Museum. It was through my relationship with Sr. Juan that the phenomenon of artificial cranium deformation first grabbed my interest, and turned it into a quest.

He was born and raised in the Paracas Peru area, and early on avidly pursued the remnants of the fabulous pre-Colombian cultures which had inhabited the area. Sr. Juan is respected by many Peruvian archaeologists for his vast knowledge of the ancient cultures of the Pisco, Paracas and Nazca areas, and in my opinion he is indeed the foremost expert.

I also dedicate this book to Lloyd Pye, known to many for his 12 years studying the strange starchild skull, as well as his questioning the validity of Darwinian evolutionary theory. Though he died at a young age, his contributions to unravelling the mysteries of humanity will never be forgotten.

And last but never least, my thanks to my beloved Irene, whose interest in the mysteries of historical Peru and Bolivia rival my own.

Sr. Juan Navarro and baby Paracas skull

Permanent alterations of the body such as, dental modifications, scarification, mutilation, tattooing, and piercing, as well as several types and forms of body art and ornamentation have been part of human culture from the beginning of history as a way of differentiating oneself from others. Artificial deformation of the neonatal cranial vault (babys head) is another example of these types of practices, and is the subject of this book.

Modification of the heads shape, favoured due to the plastic characteristics of the skull in newborns, was carried out by means of a steadfast pressure applied on the head from the first days of life until 2 or 3 years of age, in general. This custom has been found on all continents, except Antarctica as far as we know, and became an especially widespread practice among the cultures of South America, and especially Peru long before the arrival of Spanish conquerors in the 16th century AD.

Artificial cranial deformations (called ACD henceforth) of newborns have been carried out since time immemorial. From the archaic Homo sapiens in Australia ()

Some forms of cranial deformation

It was already known in Byblos, an ancient Phoenician city, by 4,000 BC and in Georgia by 3,000 BC, and was described by Herodotus (c. 485 to c. 425 BC) in the Caucasus region and by Hippocrates (c. 460 to c. 377 BC) among the people who lived west of the Black Sea. () It was a common practice in eastern Asia in what is today Malaysia, as well as Indonesia, Sumatra, Borneo (the Minahassa people), and in the Philippines. In southern Asia, it was common among the Brahuis people in India, in the Punjab region in India and Pakistan, and in Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Beluchistan.

Some have suggested that this practice became widespread with the Scythians. This people, pushed out by Chinese emperor Hsuan Wang, had to move from their original settlements in central Asia toward southern Russia into and near the Crimean peninsula in the 8th and 7th century BC. Rich archaeological remains with artificially deformed skulls have been found in excavations just east of this area at the Syr Darya and Amu Darya river deltas.

Hun cranial deformation

The Scythians attacked their immediate neighbours, the Cimmerians, and a large-scale nomadic migration toward the west began. The Cimmerians, under Scythian pressure, had to move toward central Europe, staying on the Hungarian plain until about the 4th century BC, when they were invaded, pushed away, and replaced by the Sarmatians until the 4th century AD, when the latter were, in turn, invaded by Hun conquerors. ()

The Huns, a nomadic tribe of the Asian steppes, were the heirs of the Sumerians and of the Scythians by culture and blood lines. It is interesting to note that the burial rites of both the Scythians and the Huns were quite similar: the same barrows, burial frames of logs and thick timbers, burial blocks, sacrificial horses, etc. In their incursions, the Huns carried their cultural practices, including artificial head molding in newborns, to the whole of central Europe and to the people who had to migrate toward Western Europe. As a consequence, artificially deformed skulls have been found all over the European continent from Romania to Germany (mainly in Hamburg), Austria, Switzerland (near Lausanne), Italy in Genoa and Padua. A deformed skull currently on display at the Padua University Anthropology Museum was found below Piazza Capitaniato in Padua. () ACD skulls have also been found in Belgium, France (mainly in the Deux-Sevres and Normandy regions), and in the northern part of the UK.

In Africa, skull deformation was commonplace in Nubia, supposedly in ancient Egypt (Akhenaten is believed by some to have shaped his daughters heads during the 18th Dynasty, yet no skeletal remains have been found), among the Ashanti tribe in Sudan, other tribes of central Africa, and until not long ago in the Republic of Congo (now Zaire). In Oceania, apart from Australia, it has been detected in Polynesia and Melanesia, especially the islands near Vanuatu. In the case of the latter, oral traditions state emphatically that their dominant blood line, and one could presume such practices as ACD originated in Egypt, though most western academics would beg to differ.

An Amarna period bust from Egypt

The practice of deforming the head in newborns was present in the whole of the Americas, from North America to Patagonia, mainly on the western side of the continents, and especially on the Andean plateau of South America. The expansion of this practice seems to be related to the suggested Asiatic origin of the Native American population, believed to have arrived along the current coasts of Alaska after crossing the Bering Strait, and migrated south from there some 10,000 plus years ago. In North America, it was carried out by the Bella Coola and Kwagiuth of the west coast of Canada, the Flat Head and Pueblo Indians of the United States, in Mexico by the Olmec, Aztec, Huasteca and Maya, and in Central America among the Taino Indians. But cranial molding in neonates was most widely practised in the Andean region, from Venezuela to Guyana, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.