Is this an alien skeleton? Bizarre egg-shaped skull unearthed from 4,000 years ago

originally posted by: Kojiro
Whatever the explanation, I have often wondered why head-binding was such a widespread practice compared to some of the other more radical body modifications that have been mentioned, such as elongation of the neck or foot binding. It seems extraordinary that so many cultures, many of them quite disparate, would be fixated on the shape of the skull. To echo an earlier poster, is there a way to track such a practice?

Skull binding and lip stretching are two of the most widespread body modification practices of the ancients. Lip stretching has also been practiced all over the world and it goes back 10,000 years (as per wikipedia). Lip stretching only survives in Africa and the Amazon right now, but it used to be practiced in Siberia, the Middle East and Europe too.

But the most common and widespread body modification is male circumcision.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
Why did some Chinese women engage in foot-binding, which led to permanently damaged feet?
Foot Binding

Don't know. But it's obvious when you read about the origins in your link that no one knows for sure why it started...I can not imagine that it is because of the request of one emperor to a concubine who danced so gracefully that people wanted to disfigure their feet to be like her. But, maybe.

Why do people today mutilate their earlobes with large gauges (some people even gauge their cheeks now)?

Well, for one, it's not mutilation, but it's obviously because they like it, and it's their own body.

Why do people wear extensive and bodily-invasive piercings (tongues, nipples, genitalia)?

Because they like it, and it's their own body.

Why do people get full-body tattoos?

Because they like it, and it's their own body.

The feet-binding example is the only one that is relatively comparable--why do they do that? We don't seem to really know, but there are speculations and a generally accepted theory. But even with that, we still don't have a generally accepted theory as to the "why" behind the head binding that I've ever come across...and feet binding is localized to one culture, whereas head binding shows up all over the world.

a reply to: Fowlerstoad

From my understanding, H. Capensis hasn't even been truly recognized as a species, just a possibility. So, in that regard, I guess it's possible.

ETA: This explains what I'm talking about, from The Smithsonian:

Homo capensis: In the early 1910s, two farmers stumbled across hominid fossils, including bits of a skull, near Boskop, South Africa. The bones were passed around to many anatomists—including Raymond Dart, who later discovered the first Australopithecus fossil—before ending up in the hands of paleontologist Robert Broom. Broom estimated the brain size of the skull (PDF): a whopping 1,980 cubic centimeters (the typical modern person’s brain is around 1,400 cubic centimeters). Broom determined that the skull should be called H. capensis, also known as Boskop Man. Other specimens from South Africa were added to the species, and some scientists became convinced southern Africa was once home to a race of big-brained, small-faced people. But by the 1950s, scientists were questioning the legitimacy of H. capensis. One problem was that the thickness of the original skull made it difficult to estimate the true brain size. And even if it were 1,980 cubic centimeters, that’s still within the normal range of variation for modern people’s brains, anthropologist and blogger John Hawks explained in 2008. Another problem, Hawks pointed out, was that scientists were preferentially choosing larger skulls to include in H. capensis while ignoring smaller skulls that were found in association with the bigger specimens. Today, fossils once classified as H. capensis are considered members of H. sapiens.

Yes, I know, some people have a beef with the Smithsonian considering ancient skeletons, but I highly doubt that everything is a conspiracy, as a different species of hominid isn't exactly an earth-shattering idea.

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
a reply to: SlapMonkey

Maybe skull binding makes the brain work differently. We know that much of our brain is unused, maybe squashing it together unlocks neural pathways that we don't usually use.

Okay, that's my out of the box thought of the day.

OotB thinking is great...but then that theory begs for the answer to this question: How would they know that, in so many different cultures, in so many different locations around the globe?

originally posted by: SlapMonkey

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
a reply to: SlapMonkey

Maybe skull binding makes the brain work differently. We know that much of our brain is unused, maybe squashing it together unlocks neural pathways that we don't usually use.

Okay, that's my out of the box thought of the day.

OotB thinking is great...but then that theory begs for the answer to this question: How would they know that, in so many different cultures, in so many different locations around the globe?

It could be that different peoples in different parts of the world all realized the importance of the head/brain because of the effect that head/brain injuries had on those people.

Those ancient people are just as intelligent as we are today, so it is not surprising that they would be able to figure out that the brain is important just by observation and experience.

a reply to: Box of Rain

Do we know of any scientific evidence that reshaping our skulls has any dramatic effect on the function of our brain? I understand that some ancient cultures knew things that we are only now rediscovering, but I've never seen anything that remotely points to a scientific reason for binding skulls in order to improve and change brain function.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: Box of Rain

Do we know of any scientific evidence that reshaping our skulls has any dramatic effect on the function of our brain? I understand that some ancient cultures knew things that we are only now rediscovering, but I've never seen anything that remotely points to a scientific reason for binding skulls in order to improve and change brain function.

Not to change brain function, but to accentuate the head.

I'm just saying they knew the head was important, so they may have done things to accentuate and differentiate the head.


Consider a less radical type of accentuation: Eye shadow....

People knew of the importance of eyes in society (eye contact as a means to get attention, looking at someone's eyes to tell if they are being truthful, etc), so many different cultures had some sort of makeup (or tattoos) that accentuated the eyes. This didn't make people see any better, but it was still an important way for people to call attention to their eyes.

a reply to: Box of Rain

This didn't make people see any better, but it was still an important way for people to call attention to their eyes.

We can say the same thing for breast implants. They don't make you see any better but they make getting jobs a lot easier.

Anyway, as far as head binding spanning cultures, newborn babies often come out with misshapen heads during the birthing process, so I think it would pretty easy to figure out that you can shape a head.

Way back when I was in 2nd grade we had a boy with a deformed head, he had a bump in the back, we called him 'Hammerhead' and yes it's cruel and wrong but we were kids, and nobody ever mentioned he might had been ET...

a reply to: SlapMonkey
If "Because they like it" is a valid answer to the questions posed, then it is also a valid answer to same question (why?) concerning the cranial deformations.

Harte

a reply to: Harte

No, it's not. The point in my responses was more that all of those things are done to their own bodies at ages where they understand what they're doing. With infant head binding, the bound individual doesn't know what's going on.

I'll concede that "because they like it" is a valid answer as to the "why," but not the whole question of "why did the practice start, and why does it span so many cultures around the world?"

Well, it seems that any lack of a real explanation of why it was so widespread seems to emphasize that it's still an anthropological mystery and curiosity. I would figure that there might have been some potential cross-pollination of cultures through some means (interpret as you will, this can happen in a number of different ways). Which is why I'm curious, can the practice be tracked back to any original source?

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: Harte

No, it's not. The point in my responses was more that all of those things are done to their own bodies at ages where they understand what they're doing. With infant head binding, the bound individual doesn't know what's going on.

I'll concede that "because they like it" is a valid answer as to the "why," but not the whole question of "why did the practice start, and why does it span so many cultures around the world?"

Okay, but then must we investigate why the other mentioned practices started in the first place as well?

After all, we could have had aliens with multiple skin tones, aliens with tiny feet, aliens with huge lips, aliens with long necks and aliens with bits of metal sticking out of their bodies.

Why do I never see anyone using our ignorance about the genesis of these other bodily deformations as evidence for alien contact?

I don't mean that you in particular have made that claim. But let's not pretend that it's not what this is about.

Harte

What is odd to me is that people still don't get how often headbinding was in practice. I mean we don't dig up ancient Chinese and wonder why they had tiny feet because we know about foot binding. Why is it so hard to believe head binding occurred?

Head binding does not and cannot increase volume of the skull. Only shape.

So it's easy to rule out.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
But my biggest question that I don't think will ever be answered is this--why? Why have ancient cultures, all over the world, done such a seemingly pointless thing to their children's skulls?

Why did some Chinese women engage in foot-binding, which led to permanently damaged feet?
Foot Binding

Why do people today mutilate their earlobes with large gauges (some people even gauge their cheeks now)?

Why do people wear extensive and bodily-invasive piercings (tongues, nipples, genitalia)?

Why do people get full-body tattoos?

I agree with this line of thinking. As simple as it may sound, I think we'd need to see the hairstyles & other cultural attire to fully understand it. Humans have always done weird body alterations in the name of style, fashion, individuality, conformity, etc. What would scientists in the distant future say if they discovered the semi-preserved corpses of many modern women? Imagine if those corpses had:

1. Petrified silicone blobs in the upper torso;
2. Gelled substances added to the butt area;
3. Chiseled down cheeks, noses, and knee bones (yes this exists);
4. Orange chemicals embedded in the skin over the entire body;
5. Holes with metal studs punched through the earlobes, noses, navel, nipples, and other regions;
6. And the intestines drastically shortened (Bariatric Surgery).

Depending on the customs of their time, they'd also be flabbergasted by what those features could be for.

In India, today, babies are born with 4 legs, a tail, two heads...

Aliens? Gods? ...Or idiocy?

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: Frocharocha

I wonder if they've looked at the skull's plate sutures to see if they're all there...I know in some of the elongated skulls that are claimed to be of alien origin (or a different species of hominid), there are less plates to the skull.

But my biggest question that I don't think will ever be answered is this--why? Why have ancient cultures, all over the world, done such a seemingly pointless thing to their children's skulls? It makes no sense to me, unless it really is to emulate a different race of being that they revered and wanted to emulate.

Does anyone have a good answer to the "why" question?

Why do people get peircings? Tattoos? Gauges? Why does anyone participate in "body modification" at all? Hint: the answer probably isn't "aliens".

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
a reply to: SlapMonkey

Maybe skull binding makes the brain work differently. We know that much of our brain is unused, maybe squashing it together unlocks neural pathways that we don't usually use.

Okay, that's my out of the box thought of the day.

The idea that "most of our brain is unused" is a complete and utter myth.

originally posted by: dr1234

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
a reply to: SlapMonkey

Maybe skull binding makes the brain work differently. We know that much of our brain is unused, maybe squashing it together unlocks neural pathways that we don't usually use.

Okay, that's my out of the box thought of the day.

The idea that "most of our brain is unused" is a complete and utter myth.

Thank you. I was going to point this fallacy out myself, but wanted to make sure it hadn't been done already...
As for the foot binding, I did a paper on it a couple years ago, and I believe that I found that it was thought to also be a way for the men to control their women. With bound feet, the women couldn't walk, thus couldn't go anywhere without an escort.