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Hundreds of elongated skulls found in Perù
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
One of the hundreds of elongated skulls that were discovered in 1928 at Paracas Peninsula in Peru. Cranial deformation was practiced by the Paracas civilization (800-100 BCE) by tightly wrapping the head in cloth, during the first few years of life, in order to elongate the cranium
Humans are so weird. how did this practice come about i wonder, did someone think 'i want my child's head to be long' for reasons and did the cloth thing or did they go 'I wonder what happens if i were to wrap this cloth around my baby's head for years'
maybe it happened by accident at some point and other people thought it looked dope
This is pretty fucking weird, but I can sort of see how a weird beauty ideal becomes the norm, and at least having a long skull isn’t automatically an impairment. Meanwhile the old Chinese bound the feet of their women, super painful and making them completely useless because they simply can’t walk or stand and have to be carried everywhere. Also a beauty ideal, but even more weird in my opinion because it’s straight up crippling