http://ahotcupofjoe.net/2015/01/pseudoar...ed-skulls/
EXCERPT: Elongated skulls of ancient people like the Peruvians have long been a source of mystery and fascination [...But there's a...] website [...where...] the conclusions drawn by the author’s observations [...] make little sense. The author of the post concludes, “Given that there are at least two mummies containing foetuses with elongated skulls, in addition to hundreds of infant and children with elongated crania, a priority task for the academic community would be to identify the physical location of the mummies and proceed to DNA analysis…”
[...] the conclusions are based largely on evidence that doesn’t exist (the missing fetus mummies). [...] This [...] is a hallmark of pseudoarchaeological approaches to evidence. Whenever we see heavy reference made to physical evidence that is no longer available (ostensibly because it is either lost or being suppressed by “mainstream” archaeologists), then a red flag should be thrown down. Infants with cranial deformation are easily explained -- their parents bound their heads [..."mechanical deformation practices that actually still go on in some societies even today"... ] Nothing to explain.
[...] Clearly, what the author is suggesting is that some other species is the reason for elongated skulls in human populations [...] What would be a more parsimonious explanation for elongated infant skulls? Artificial cranial deformation by parents in societies for which we have physical evidence that it was done [...] or that homo sapiens mated with another species that had naturally elongated heads?
EXCERPT: Elongated skulls of ancient people like the Peruvians have long been a source of mystery and fascination [...But there's a...] website [...where...] the conclusions drawn by the author’s observations [...] make little sense. The author of the post concludes, “Given that there are at least two mummies containing foetuses with elongated skulls, in addition to hundreds of infant and children with elongated crania, a priority task for the academic community would be to identify the physical location of the mummies and proceed to DNA analysis…”
[...] the conclusions are based largely on evidence that doesn’t exist (the missing fetus mummies). [...] This [...] is a hallmark of pseudoarchaeological approaches to evidence. Whenever we see heavy reference made to physical evidence that is no longer available (ostensibly because it is either lost or being suppressed by “mainstream” archaeologists), then a red flag should be thrown down. Infants with cranial deformation are easily explained -- their parents bound their heads [..."mechanical deformation practices that actually still go on in some societies even today"... ] Nothing to explain.
[...] Clearly, what the author is suggesting is that some other species is the reason for elongated skulls in human populations [...] What would be a more parsimonious explanation for elongated infant skulls? Artificial cranial deformation by parents in societies for which we have physical evidence that it was done [...] or that homo sapiens mated with another species that had naturally elongated heads?