Could Ancient Mesoamericans Have Been Influenced by Aliens?

[zoobyshoe]

I'm not saying it was alie...

Very much like the skulls in "Indiana Jones vs The Aliens" (or whatever that movie was called):

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...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5027058...ience-science/?ocid=msnhp&pos=10#.UNUc0u18tSU

 

[Drakkith]

Ugh, freaky!

 

[Curious3141]

Ah, the lost art of interventional phrenology.

 

[256bits]

That one doesn't very much look like a crystal.

 

[turbo]

Intentional distortions of the features of children (be it head-binding, foot-binding, etc) has been around for a long time. While the results can be shocking to contemporary people, it is good to reflect on the cultural pressures that made such modifications "favorable" in the eyes of potential mates, and perhaps elevate or depress the childrens' social status.

It was probably a statement of the parents' status and wealth, too. If you bind the feet of a female child, it is unlikely that she would be able to perform any physical labor outside the home. Cooking and cleaning (thought servants might have taken care of that) would be possible, but what about growing and harvesting food, or gathering firewood?

 

[Pythagorean]

So how do I stretch my children's skulls?

 

[turbo]

So how do I stretch my children's skulls?

Hang them by their hair?

The technique was binding the skulls to encourage elongation during early development. I can't imagine that any pointy-skulled woman would attract me, but apparently some cultures prized this type of distortion.

 

[Evo]

This one in the OP is unusual, as normally the head is elongated, but the eye sockets remain normal, at least in previous finds.

http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/forensics/11-forensic_anthropology/skeleton_evidence.htm

 

[Pengwuino]

Well I'm officially creeped out permanently

 

[turbo]

Well I'm officially creeped out permanently

Join the club.

 

[wuliheron]

The future past! That's the next phase in human evolution funded by your healthcare program is expanding the skull and tweaking the brain for whatever capacity you want. Only then will we fully understand these primitives in cahoots with the insidious alien anal probe mind control x-pear-e-ments!