Parents have been meddling with their children’s heads since prehistoric times. To achieve the desired forms — flat, round, conical — the pliable skulls of newborns were typically either wrapped tightly in cloth or bound between boards. The origins of this practice, have been traced to early Homo sapiens in Australia about 13,000 years ago and, amid some scholarly contention, potentially to Neanderthal populations 45,000 years ago.

The practice has been documented on every continent except Antarctica. In the region that is now Peru, early inhabitants apparently believed that a sloping forehead was an advantageous feature, with the earliest evidence dating back to the fourth millennium BC. The stretched, sloped skulls found among the remains of the Paracas culture (active from 800BC to AD100) have even fuelled the fanciful idea of an unearthly origin.

In his new book The Mountain Embodied, Matthew Velasco, an anthropologist at Cornell University in the US, details the cranial modification traditions of the Collaguas and Cavanas, neighbouring peoples that lived in the Colca Valley of highland Peru. During 1100 to 1450, the Collaguas employed methods to make their heads assume a longer, narrower shape while the Cavanas sought to make their heads wide and squat. Over time, the Collaguas’ elongated look became the dominant style of cranial modification in the valley.

These deliberate alterations resulted in craniums that mimicked the silhouettes of mountains sacred to their respective cultures. Velasco quotes a 16th-century Spanish scribe and translator who wrote that the Collaguas wore tall, brimless hats called chucos and fashioned head shapes to pay homage to Collaguata, the distant volcano they considered their ancestral home. The Cavanas, the translator observed, sculpted the skulls of their babies in tribute to Gualcagualca, the snow-laden peak that loomed over their town.

Andean head-shaping has traditionally been viewed as a way to visually distinguish different ethnic groups. Velasco’s book argues for a shift toward understanding it from the perspective of the people who practised it.

“Velasco’s book points to more subtle matters of personhood, belief and tradition,” said Andrew Scherer, an anthropologist at Brown University, US.

To Velasco, personhood is a quality that empowers individuals, places or things to fully partake in social affairs. “Sacred mountains and objects could be fully interacted with as people,” Velasco said. “Mountains particularly were thought of as vital participants in society, and, as anthropologists, we take that idea seriously, even if it seems strange.”

In a 2018 study, Velasco examined the skulls of 213 humans buried in two Collagua cemeteries. Based on skeletal analyses, he theorised that cranially modified Collagua girls and women may have benefited from a more privileged existence, with better access to food and a lower incidence of violence.

By the 15th century, the Incas had assimilated the valley into their empire. While they permitted head-shaping among the locals, recent scholarship indicates that the Incas did not adopt it. The Spanish invaders outlawed the tradition in the 16th century — by order of Francisco de Toledo, Viceroy of Peru, in 1573.

In his book, Velasco argues that the practice of head-binding contributed to social disparities. Individuals with bound heads were likely to assume specific roles in the farming and herding economy, roles that later conferred entitlements to land and resources. Consequently, the broad adoption of head-shaping in the 14th century appears to have, perhaps unintentionally, served to maintain wealth within these groups.

Medical research has shown that altering a newborn’s skull shape, when the bones are malleable and the soft spots, or fontanels, are open, was unlikely to have negatively affected cognitive development. “There’s simply no evidence that shows cranial modification caused neurological damage,” Velasco said. The brain, being adaptable, maintains its volume — and functionality — despite changes made to the cranium’s shape.

NYTNS