Archaeologists excavating Mesoamerican ruins in Mexico discovered an unusual cube-shaped human skull. This is the first evidence that people in this region practiced a unique form of head surgery, scientifically known as cranial modification, some 1,400 years ago.
The skull was unearthed near the ruins of Balcón de Montezuma (Balcony of Montezuma) in the state of Tamaulipas in east-central Mexico. According to Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the region was inhabited by various Mesoamerican ethnic groups from 650 BC to 1200 AD. A village appeared around 400 AD, eventually consisting of around 90 circular houses built in two squares.
In a recent examination of artifacts and bones discovered at Balcón de Montezuma, researchers noticed that the skull of a middle-aged man had a shape never seen before.
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Biological anthropologist Jesús Ernesto Velasco Gonzalez explained in a translated INAH statement on November 25 that artificially modified skulls have been found in the region before, but the shape of this man’s skull was unique.
Because these skulls have an almost “alien” appearance, many people are familiar with cultures that practiced conical cranial modification. These skull shapes are typically created using long pieces of fabric or soft padding to “restraint” the infant’s head and encourage the skull to grow in an “oblique” direction, making it appear elongated.
On the other hand, most of Balcón de Montezuma’s modified skulls are shaped in an “erect” orientation by placing soft pads on the back and/or front of the skull, giving the person a more upright or pointed head.
However, the man from Balcón de Montezuma had a different form of “upright” modification that flattened the top of his head, giving his skull a cubic appearance, which some experts call a parallelepiped (a three-dimensional parallelogram or diamond-like shape).
Examples of this flattened skull shape have only been seen outside the region, including Veracruz and the Maya region, so researchers wanted to find out whether the man was local or foreign. However, chemical analysis of the man’s bones and teeth revealed that he was likely born in the area, lived his entire life there, and likely died there.
Researchers suspect that our unusual head shapes may have some culturally specific meaning that we don’t yet know about. In many regions of Mesoamerica, slightly different head shapes are known to correlate with different cultural groups. Although the man himself is not from another geographical location, it is possible that the people who shaped his head were members of a different cultural group.
According to INAH Tamaulipas Director Tonantzin Silva Cárdenas, research is underway on materials recovered during past archaeological expeditions at Balcón de Montezuma and will help expand experts’ understanding of the site’s cultural and historical relationships with other pre-Hispanic groups in the area.
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