Possible evidence of a cultural practice affecting head growth in some late pleistocene east Asian and Australasian populations

Abstract

It is well known that a number of cultural practices can leave their mark on the skeletonas altered morphology or incisions. Deformed head and foot shapes, tooth removal or modification for aesthetic or ritual reasons are well known However, the evidence for these human behavioural traits is generally to be found in material dated only to the past few millennia. A possible exception could be cranial deformation, the result of pressure influence on bone modelling during childhood. This may be of two kinds: (a) accidental, the result of variable head covering or cradle devices which could have long term influence on some aspect of cranial growth; (b) intentional modification by the application of well designed “binding” or “boards”, resulting in the squaring off or elongation of the vault. Although intentional deformation as a widespread cultural trait has been well reviewed by Dingwall (1931) and more recent authors, little attention has been given to the possibility of minor and accidental external influences on head growth. Yet the possibility arises that this could have occurred commonly in some communities who ornament or cover their heads in certain ways. Moreover, it is clear that any slight changes resulting might all too easily be missed with the result that multivariate analyses of measurements from such skulls might present a very distorted picture of actual population affinities. Furthermore, such misinterpretation becomes especially dangerous in the case of fragmentary fossil and sub-fossil hominid material. As yet, there have been no claims that the skull morphology of Pleistocene communities might be affected by such cultural agents, but it in fact seems possible to present a case for accidental head deformation in at least the late Palaeolithic period of eastern Asia. The evidence comes from three sites, as follows: (a) Upper Cave site. Choukoutien, China. This is probably the earliest evidence so far of minor frontal deformity. In the so called “Melanesian woman” the skull is in a relatively good state of preservation and shows a slightly depressed zone extending laterally across the upper part of the frontal roughly from one temporal line to the other. The anomaly is seen in good lateral views of the skull [Figure 1 (b)], but as the extent of the shape change is minimal, it is understandable that it has previously been missed. In view of the generally good condition of the skull, it seems unlikely that this localized variation is the result of post mortem deformity.