Skull binding and Neandertals

H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
7 Nov 1995 01:23:46 -0500

I seem to remember reading in history that
the Huns practiced binding the heads of
children so that they got high foreheads.

I also seem to remember that some American
Indian tribe also did so. It's hard to
imagine that it would be completely independently
developed, so I'd guess that it came from Asia
someplace and the custom might go back about
13,000 years or more.

What if the custom goes back even further,
perhaps back to the days of the Neadertals
and that they were doing this to look like
Cro-magnons and that the custom just got
stuck in some rut in some tribe lost from
the rest of humanity and survived. Would this
not indicate that the two were mixing and that
somehow there was a premium placed on not
being flat-topped?

If we consider this in light of stories all over
Eurasia and America about Bigfoot, Sasquatch,
Yeti (?) maybe these are dim memories of distant
events?

Any thoughts?

-- 

Regards, Mark
http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey