There have been human skulls that are warped into alien-like shapes found in a cemetery in Mexico, reports NBC News. The cemetery is 1000 years old and researchers say that the skulls were deliberately deformed. It was a practice that was common in central America done to children as they grew.
The cemetery is located in Onavas, Mexico and was found in 1999 when the town was building an irrigation canal. At the site there were the remains of 25 humans, thirteen of those with the warped skulls. The skulls appear elongated and pointy in the back and have five mutilated teeth, reports NBC News.
Out of the 25 human remains found in the cemetery, 17 of them were children that were between the ages of 5 months and 16 years old. NBC News reports that because there is a high number of children it could mean that the cranial deformation killed them because of too much force against the skull.
Garcia said to ABC News that scientists have found these types of skulls in other parts of Mexico including Guasave and south of Sonara.
"Scientists believe they put beams of wood on the front and back of individuals' heads and wrapped the wood with bands to exert pressure on the skull," reported ABC News.
"Cranial deformation has been used by different societies in the world as a ritual practice, or for distinction of status within a group or to distinguish between social groups," said researcher Cristina García Moreno, an archaeologist at Arizona State University to NBC News. "The reason why these individuals at El Cementerio deformed their skulls is still unknown."
Garcia said that when people look at the skull they think they were aliens. "I could say that some say that as a joke, but the interesting thing is that some do think so. Obviously we are talking about human beings, not of aliens," she said to NBC News.
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