An unusual cube-shaped human skull has been uncovered at a Mesoamerican site in Mexico. It is 1,400 years old and provides the first evidence that people in this area practiced a unique form of head-shaping known as cranial modification. The unusual skull was unearthed near the archaeological site of Balcón de Montezuma (Balcony of Montezuma) in the east-central Mexican state of Tamaulipas. (Picture: INAH)
The area is known to have had various Mesoamerican ethnic groups living in the area between 650 BC and 1200 AD. The Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) reveals that around 400AD a village sprang up, eventually encompassing around 90 circular houses in two plazas. A recent review of artifacts and bones discovered at Balcón de Montezuma led to researchers noticing that the skull of a middle-aged man was a shape they’d never seen before. (Picture: Getty)
Biological anthropologist Jesús Ernesto Velasco González explained that, while artificially modified skulls have been discovered in the area before, the shape of this man’s skull is unique. He said: ‘As a result, not only was intentional cranial deformation identified for the first time for this type of site, but also a variant with respect to the models recognized in Mesoamerica, not reported, until now, in the area.’ (Picture: INAH)
He added: ‘The type recorded for Balcón de Montezuma is tabular erect, but it has a superior plane that had not been seen before in bone remains recovered in the Huasteca region. Unlike other common types, this shape is tabular superior or parallelepiped, so named by some specialists given the polyhedral appearance it creates in the skull, where the compression plane is between the lambda above the occipital angle and the sagittal suture in the parietal bones. This causes the head to show a more square shape, unlike the conical shape.’ (Picture: Jon G. Fuller/VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
People may be familiar with cultures that practised cone-shaped cranial modification. Usually, these skull shapes are formed by using lengths of fabric or soft padding to ‘bind’ the heads of infants and encourage the skull to grow in an ‘oblique’ direction, and they appear elongated. But this new find was unusual for another reason too. (Picture: Jon G. Fuller, Jr./VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Examples of this flat-topped skull shape had only been seen outside the area, including in Veracruz and in the Maya area, so the researchers wanted to test whether the man was local or foreign. They analysed the chemistry of the man’s bones and teeth and discovered that he was born in the area, likely lived there his entire life, and died there. (Picture: DeAgostini/Getty Images)
The researchers say that the man’s uncommon head shape may have some sort of culturally-specific meaning that is still unknown. In many parts of Mesoamerica, slightly different head shapes are associated with different cultural groups, so although this man himself was not from another geographic location, it is possible that the people who shaped his head were members of a different cultural group. (Picture: Getty)Add as preferred source
