Paracas Culture - Cranial Deformation

Cranial Deformation

The Paracas culture resided on the coast of Peru, south of the capital Lima. Some estimates are that this culture existed between 700 BC and 100 AD, but sources vary, mainly because very little carbon 14 testing has been conducted on organic materials found in the area. Julio C. Tello (1880 to 1947), the "father" of Peruvian archaeology, conducted archaeological digs around the Paracas area in 1927 and 1928 as a result of learning that tomb robbers had found large caches of funerary materials, including highly prized textiles, as well as ceramics and ceremonial offerings at a site called Cerro Colorado, which is now a protected area inside the Paracas Ecological Reserve.

Little work has been done by archaeologists since Tello's time, but the plundering of the tombs of the nobility of this culture has gone on, ceaselessly, up to this very day. One intriguing aspect of this culture which has been overlooked by most researchers is the fact that the nobility practiced skull binding, resulting in cranial deformation. They were not unique in this, as the process of manipulating the shape of a child's head in infancy was practiced by many cultures, at different times, around the world. These other cultures include those in ancient Iraq, Russia, Melanesia, Malta, North America, Mexico, and possibly Egypt during the Amarna period: Tutankhamen has been cited as having an elongated head, but that is disputed by many scholars.

The Paracas situation is somewhat unique in that Childress, and his colleagues Juan Navarro and Brien Foerster, claim to have identified at least five distinct shapes of elongated skull, each being predominant in specific cemeteries. The largest and most striking are from a site called Chongos, near the town of Pisco, north of Paracas. These skulls are called "cone heads" by many who see them, because of their literal conical appearance. Testing of these have illustrated that, on average, their cranial capacity is 1.5 liters, approximately 25% larger than contemporary skulls, and they weigh as much as 60 percent more. The skulls' eye orbit cavities are significantly larger than contemporary skulls, and the jaws are both larger and thicker. Moreover, the Chongos skulls have two small holes at the back. Childress and Foerster suggest that: these holes are naturally occurring foramen and not cranial deformation and; that blood vessels and perhaps nerves exited them and fed cranial skin tissue.