Image: Cristina García/INAH
Human skulls deliberately warped into strange, alien-like shapes have been unearthed in a 1,000-year-old cemetery in Mexico, researchers say.
The practice of deforming skulls of children as they grew was common in Central America, and these findings suggest the tradition spread farther north than had been thought, scientists added.
The cemetery was discovered by residents of the small Mexican village of Onavas in 1999 as they were building an irrigation canal. It is the first pre-Hispanic cemetery found in the northern Mexican state of Sonora.
The site, referred to as El Cementerio, contained the remains of 25 human burials. Thirteen of them had deformed skulls, which were elongate and pointy at the back, and five had mutilated teeth. [See Photos of the 'Alien' Skulls]
Dental mutilation involves filing or grinding teeth into odd shapes, while cranial deformation involves distorting the normal growth of a child's skull by applying force — for example, by using cloths to bind wooden boards against their heads.
"Cranial deformation has been used by different societies in the world as a ritual practice, or for distinction of status within a group or to distinguish between social groups," said researcher Cristina García Moreno, an archaeologist at Arizona State University. "The reason why these individuals at El Cementerio deformed their skulls is still unknown."
"The most common comment I've read from people that see the pictures of cranial deformation has been that they think that those people were 'aliens,'" García added. "I could say that some say that as a joke, but the interesting thing is that some do think so. Obviously we are talking about human beings, not of aliens."
Of the 25 burials, 17 were children between 5 months and 16 years of age. The high number of children seen at the site could suggest inept cranial deformation killed them due to excessive force against the skull. The children had no signs of disease that caused their deaths.
Although cranial deformation and dental mutilation were common features among the pre-Hispanic populations of Mesoamerica and western Mexico, scientists had not seen either practice in Sonora or the American Southwest, which share a common pre-Hispanic culture. The researchers suggest the people at El Cementerio had been influenced by recent migrants from the south.
"The most important implication would be to extend the northern boundary of the Mesoamerican influence," García told LiveScience.
A number of skeletons also were found with earrings, nose rings, bracelets, pendants and necklaces made from seashells and snails from the Gulf of California. One person was buried with a turtle shell on the chest. It remains uncertain why some of these people were buried with ornaments while others were not, or — another mystery — why only one of the 25 skeletons was female.
During the next field season, the researchers aim to determine the cemetery's total size and hope to find more burials to get a clearer idea of the society's burial customs. "With new information, we also hope to determine whether there was any interaction between these and Mesoamerican societies — how it was and when it happened," they said.
García and her colleagues completed their analysis of the skeletal remains in November. They plan to submit their research to either the journal American Antiquity or the journal Latin American Antiquity.
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25 Comments
Add Commentskull deforming intentionally? sounds like a coverup of the truth again, don't believe it, they are alien skulls.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisokay, i totally understand cranial mutation, but this is definitely not a human skull. the zygomatic bone is totally out of proportion with the rest of the skull along with the ramus branch of the mandible. anyone who has taken a basic anatomy course can totally spot that someone is trying to pull a fast one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's funny how anthropomorphic aliens always are.. and how much they resemble aliens from movies and teevee...but you know...I'm not suggesting anything. ;-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe they are remains of Anunnaki???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't understand why SciAm decided to compress that photo horizontally. If you go to http://www.livescience.com/25734-alien-skull-binding-mexico.html you can see the same photo (it is number 6: http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/034/760/original/foto6.jpg ) and it looks quite human. Of course you need to remember that it is not taken exactly from the side but a bit from behind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid anyone get a good look at the mandible? The connection to the skull is usually across the temple. this bone clearly connects in two spots. This creature wasn't 'formed', it was either severely mutilated, a mutation on it's own, or an alien life form. In that order.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a Paramedic and have studied the human anatomy quite extensivley and those are not human Occular Orbits! Let alone the mandible. Who are they kidding. Im only a medic not even a biologist and I saw the major differences right off. Either this is a hoax or this is a different species all to gether. I believe the local indiginous tribes tride to emulate their (g)ods by wrapping their skulls, this shows up in Egypt as well with King Tut etc. However those skulls have been well documented as "Human" with a genetic difference but still at least 1/2 human. These are not even close. I hope DNA tests have or are being done on these because these need to be looked at very carefully. Quetzalcotal was a reptillian winged God and the timing of this is very suspicious as to the return on Dec. 21st 2012. I will be following this very closely unless the governments involved quash it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that this is more of a reptillian type of creature if one at all (possible hoax) and the timing-Dec 21st, is erily strange as well. Quetzalcotal was a winged serpant (g)od and was to return on this date. Was this it? The annunaki, according to Z.Sitchen were more human like us yet larger and had lifespans that we would think of as immortal. These creatures obviously did not live out their normal lifespan.lol But I am very supicious of all of this. Not a human skelliton at all. Thanks for your question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease check the links I provided before jumping to conclusions. This image is a distorted version of the original.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did look at your suggestion and it is still not human. Either a hoax or a different species. DNA testing needs to be done. I hope they dont just leave us hanging. Thanks for your input.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe extend of both images is the same. I'd say someone needed to make the image smaller and square to meet a
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisformat requirement but instead of reducing and cropping they simply changed the dimensions of the image.
What's an 'alien-like' skull? We don't know of any aliens. How can something be compared to a unknown? Perhaps most aliens look more like ameoba or mushrooms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaGaO The page isn't there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo barbaric! As the Chinese used to know, it's the feet of little girls that should be deformed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's Zippy the Pinhead. He's in the comics everyday. Yow!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAliens, I guess they must have crashed landed... more corn? No thanks, I've had enough!
Perhaps the term alien is alien to you lol, could be just not a normal human skull or genetic defect. But I get that most think "Alien" refers to space men. But like the term UFO just means "Unidentified Flying Object" dont nessisarily mean little green men in a saucer, but mostly it does. Semantics. Tomato-Tamato
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have known children whose parents were exposed to dioxin while working at a now defunct transformer factory. The children had teeth that looked like they belonged in a piranha's mouth and had extremely exaggerated bulging of the eyes. Wouldn't the evidence suggest that the burial site in Mexico simply contained the remains of an extended family or clan that suffered from a series of genetic mutations, rather than purposeful dental or cranial mutilation? The fact that some indigenous tribes were later found to actually be engaged in such practices may be ancillary, and the dearth of female skeletal remains could simply mean that the genetic defect was located on the Y chromosome, leading to a mass extinction of prepubescent males, of course resulting in the collapse of the entire race of coneheads. Intentional mutilation of infant skulls is well documented among even N. American indigenous tribes, the purpose of which would be the same as for Africans with a penchant for extreme body-piercing or for Chinese women with bound feet - establishing an unnatural standard of beauty by the wealthy class who were very inbred and therefore butt-ugly. Forcing the rest of society to adore certain physical traits that only the wealthy could afford to exact on their idle children from birth to marriageable age offers a kind of royal distinction that perpetuates their status. The love of money has never been the root of all good.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell I say thank goodness they're not made of crystal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou people and your conspiracy theories! That is almost certainly a human skull. The only thing that looks off about it is the mandible has an extremely vertical ramus, but human bones vary. And, for the paramedic who commented earlier about the eye orbits. You are not looking at the eye orbits, because they are in the front of the skull (you can't see them from the angle that the photo was taken from). He mistook the zygomatic arch for the orbits. He was way off. I've seen many human skulls, and some of them don't look human due to pathology, cultural modification, or just idiosyncrasies. If it is not human, it would more likely be a skull from another primate species than it would be an alien from outer space!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPizzaro, Cortez, horses and the inquisition arrived none too early for this part of the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaGaO, who are you, and why are you falsely saying that it looks more human-like on livescience.com? If anything it's a clear indication that indeed, it looks MORE alien!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor those that have the interest, the correct site is http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/034/760/original/foto6.jpg NOT http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/034/760/original/foto6.jp)
Regardless of your opinion of which image looks more alien, it's clear in comparing the convenient ruler included in the images that the SA image ruler's horizontal dimensions have diminished in relation to its vertical dimensions. The SA image has been 'deformed'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor more on skull deformation, please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cranial_deformation
I am going to repeat what one other commenter said.What is an alien?With no reference to make a judgement from other than someones imagination.How can we possibly have any idea what aliens look like?The likely-hood of any species from another planet having even remotely the same DNA as ours is astronomical,and that's if they even have DNA.The continual search for extraterrestrials without any proof,is like chasing shadows in the dark.This is nothing more than a study of how cruel humans can be to their children to follow or create their beliefs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMakes sense to me. Any form of skull and therefore brain rearrangement is likely to have serious drawbacks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUntil a forensic anthropologist studies the various remains I think the idle speculation is a complete waste of time. I would like to see DNA testing to see which branches of humanity they came from.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this