The Case of the Strange Skulls
A collection of bizarre human skulls from around the world.
Filed under Aliens & UFOs, Ancient Mysteries, General Science
| Skeptoid #144 March 10, 2009 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe |
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Is it an extraterrestrial alien? Is it an unknown subspecies of human? Is it a relic from a mysterious race of subterranean or Atlantean beings? Or, could there be some other, more natural explanation for the many strange misshapen skulls found throughout the world? Let's look at some of the most popular:
The Starchild Skull
Perhaps the most famous of the "strange skulls" is the so-called "Starchild Skull", the skull of a five-ear-old child found alongside a normal adult in a cave in Mexico, carbon dated to about 900 years old. Although only the top half of the skull remains, its severe deformities are clear. The skull is exceptionally broad and bulbous, not unlike modern concept sketches of "gray aliens". For this reason, the skull's current owner, Ray Young and author Lloyd Pye promote the skull as alien, or possibly an alien-human hybrid.
Neurologist Steven Novella has pointed out the probable consensus among medical professionals who have seen pictures of the Starchild, that it is likely an unfortunate case of hydrocephaly. Hydrocephaly is a condition where too much fluid accumulates inside the skull of a young child, causing the skull (which is still pliable at that age) to expand. This condition is well established to produce precisely the type of deformity seen in the Starchild skull. Victims of hydrocephaly rarely live beyond the Starchild's young age. Of course it's not possible to make a conclusive diagnosis without a direct examination. Young and Pye list a handful of specialists who they say have viewed the skull or its X-rays, but none of them (so far as I could tell) concur with the speculation that the skull is alien.
The primary strike against them is the 2003 DNA analysis. The child had normal human DNA and was male, having both X and Y chromosomes, proving that it had a human female mother and a human male father. Young and Pye state that this is consistent with the alien-human hybrid theory, which it may be, who knows; no known alien DNA exists to use as a reference. But it is also consistent with a human child with a well documented and thoroughly understood illness.
The Peruvian Coneheads
Author Robert Connolly has collected and photographed a number of skulls from ancient Peru, skulls that are surprisingly elongated. In Peru, a practice called "skull binding" involved wrapping fabric or leather straps about a child's head, molding it as it grew into this strange oval shape. There's nothing mysterious or unknown about this; we have plenty of historical and archaeological data about this practice. But Connolly disagrees, stating that this explanation "has been rejected". Well, it has, by him; but not by the anthropologists who make Peru their business. The elongated skulls of Peru are certainly interesting, but their origin is well understood and no mystery exists outside of the delusions of those who insist on alien or supernatural explanations for just about anything.
The next skulls I wanted to discuss were the strange giant skulls from Minnesota with double rows of teeth. But I quickly ran into a problem: For virtually the entire 19th century, people were reporting discoveries of skeletons with double teeth all over the United States. Double teeth sounds interesting. I found a number of repeated references that the Talmud states that some Biblical giants had double rows of teeth, but in an online searchable Talmud I found no such reference. It's also said that the Fomorians, an early Irish tribe, are known to have had double teeth. In fact, the Fomorians were a fictional race of ogres, and even so I found no mention of double teeth outside of web pages promoting strange skulls. Here are several of the double teeth stories:
- In Clearwater, Minnesota in 1888, seven skeletons were found buried in an upside-down sitting position facing a lake, all with sloping foreheads and double rows of teeth on the top and bottom.
- In Jefferson County, New York in 1878, a skeleton of "great stature" was found buried under the roots of a large maple, with entire rows of double teeth; found among the skeletons of hundreds of men, who apparently fell defending the ditch they were in.
- Proctorville, Ohio, 1892. A "very large" skull was unearthed with double teeth.
- Medina County, Ohio, 1881. Nine skeletons found while digging the cellar of a house, all with double teeth. The skulls were so large one man was able to put one on like a hat, and it rested upon his shoulders.
- Virginia, 1845, a human jawbone with transverse teeth, so large it could wrap around a man's face.
- At an Indian burial ground excavated in Michigan in 1890, three of the skulls recovered had three holes in the crown, and of these, two had double teeth in front.
- In 1829, in Chesterton, Ohio, a mound was excavated in which was found a jawbone with "more teeth" than modern humans, and which was so large that it could fit over the face of a man known for his large jaw.
- Noble County, Ohio, 1872: Three skeletons, at least eight feet in height, recovered from a mound. The skulls all had double teeth, and "upon exposure to the atmosphere, the skeletons soon crumbled back to Earth."
- Rancho Lompoc, California, 1833: Soldiers digging a pit discovered a twelve foot tall skeleton, its skull featuring double rows of teeth on the upper and lower jaws.
- A frequent visitor to Santa Rosa Island off California in 1860 often discovered numerous Indian skeletons in caves, many of which had double teeth all around.
- Mason County, Virginia, 1821: Seven skulls found, so large they could easily fit over a man's head; with double rows of teeth on the upper jaw, and but two solitary teeth on the lower jaw.
Besides the extra teeth, all of these stories have one very important fact in common: A complete lack of evidence. No photographs, and certainly no skulls in museums or private collections, at least not that I could find any record of. If you found an extraordinary skull, wouldn't you keep it? Wouldn't you show it to some professors at the local college? At a minimum, wouldn't you sell such an amazing find to someone who would display it or preserve it? But in every one of these cases, no record of the skull exists at all. And although it seems every other thrust of a shovel used to turn one of these up, apparently not a single one has been found since 1892, despite far more extensive construction and excavation since then. Even if these were hoaxes, someone would have photographed it or sketched it or preserved it. For the double-toothed skulls, I've found no reason to move from the null hypothesis that no such skull has ever actually been found. I'd love to be proven wrong.
The stories are symptomatic of a late 19th century fad. Strange skeletons and petrified people were quite popular in the United States in the 19th century, and it wasn't just limited to skulls with double teeth. It seemed that just about everyone with a circus tent or a traveling show had some enigmatic human remains, which always conveniently managed to be lost or destroyed before they could be properly scrutinized. Mark Twain lampooned these stories on a number of occasions. He once wrote:
In the fall of 1862, in Nevada and California, the people got to running wild about extraordinary petrifactions and other natural marvels. One could scarcely pick up a paper without finding in it one or two glorified discoveries of this kind. The mania was becoming a little ridiculous. I was a brand-new local editor in Virginia City, and I felt called upon to destroy this growing evil... I chose to kill the petrifaction mania with a delicate, a very delicate satire. But maybe it was altogether too delicate, for nobody ever perceived the satire part of it at all. I put my scheme in the shape of the discovery of a remarkably petrified man.
He then went on to describe the discovery of a petrified Indian making an obscene gesture. He also wrote a tale called A Ghost Story in which he is visited by the ghost of the Cardiff Giant, a 10-foot petrified man discovered in 1869 and proven to be a hoax. Twain explains to the ghost that he's been haunting P.T. Barnum's plaster copy of the Cardiff Giant instead of the original.
It's wise to understand the carnival-like atmosphere in which many of the 19th century freakshow skeletons are said to have been discovered, and the convenient lack of evidence. A few of the many stories that fit this model are:
- Skeletons were exhumed from a burial mound in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, in the 1880's. They were seven feet tall, but most extraordinarily, they had horns. Although modern replicas have been created and photographed based on the descriptions, the original horned skulls were sent to the American Investigating Museum in Philadelphia where they vanished before they could be documented. (Incidentally, the entire Internet has not a single reference to any institution called the "American Investigating Museum" outside of this one story.)
- Near Coshocton, Ohio in 1837, a number of "pygmy" skeletons are said to have been found. Various reports give the number as being "several" on the low end, to "very numerous" and "tenants of a large city" on the high end. Remains of wood found near some of them suggested that they may have originally been buried in coffins. The skeletons were three to four feet tall, and no objects were found that may have helped identify them. Unfortunately the skeletons were "reduced to chalky ashes" and could not be preserved or documented.
- A mound excavated in Ohio in 1891 revealed the skeleton known as "Copper Man", so named because of the copper jewelry and other artifacts buried with him, and said to be "enormous". Strange skull aficionados love Copper Man in part because he was actually written up in the December 17, 1891 edition of the journal Nature, issue 1155. Debunk that! In fact, the Nature article was actually a review of a book about gigantism and acromegaly that referenced the alleged discovery, and was not a peer-reviewed report of the find itself.
- A Mr. Robinson excavated a burial mound on his property in Brewersville, Indiana in either 1879 or 1891 and found a skeleton said to be nine and a half feet tall. Although Mr. Robinson declared that it had been examined by scientists from Indiana and from New York, the bones were suddenly washed away in a 1937 flood before they could be documented.
- An 1876 report mentioned in the 1978 book A Handbook of Puzzling Artifacts alleges that James Brown was plowing his field in Coffee County, Tennessee when he began turning up numerous skeletons of three foot tall pygmies. It was estimated that 75,000 to 100,000 skeletons were buried in his six acres. Sadly, not a single one of them was preserved or documented.
- Railroad workers in Hardin County, Ohio removed a 150-year-old oak stump in 1856, uncovering the bones of a man so large his vertebrae were said to be the size of those of a horse. Although the supervisor had noted they were quarrying from a burial mound and thus took appropriate caution and notes, it did not seem to occur to him to remove or preserve the extraordinary find.
Mound building was indeed common among early pre-Columbian cultures in North America, going back as far as 3,000 BCE. Thousands of such mounds have been discovered throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Metal artifacts and human remains have been discovered, but so far nothing that has surprised archaeologists: No double teeth, no pygmies, no giants. But in the midst of such intriguing mounds, it's easy to see how farmers and fortune seekers might try to generate a little sensationalism with a wild story or two. The anecdotal evidence in the form of stories has great value to investigators looking to support the claims, but so far, these stories have led to a grand total of strange skulls of exactly zero. Always remember: No matter how much poor-quality evidence you have, it does not aggregate into a single piece of good-quality evidence. You can stack cowpies as high as you want; they won't turn into a bar of gold. When you hear lots of stories that are supported by dubious or nonexistent evidence, no matter how many there are, you have good reason to be skeptical.
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References & Further Reading
Castriota-Scanderbeg, A., Dallapiccola, B. Abnormal Skeletal Phenotypes. Berlin, Germany: Springer, 2005. 3-100, 501-931.
Gerszten, P.C. "An Investigation into the Practice of Cranial Deformation Among the Pre-Columbian Peoples of Northern Chile." International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 27 May 2005, Volume 3, Issue 2: 87-98.
Hippocrates; translated by Adams, F. On Airs, Waters, and Places. Gloucester, UK: Dodo Press, 2009. 20.
Kirks, D. (Editor). Practical pediatric imaging: Diagnostic radiology of infants and children (3rd Edition). Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven, 1998. 80-200.
Novella, S. "The Starchild Project." The New England Skeptical Society. The New England Skeptical Society, 1 Feb. 2006. Web. 14 Jan. 2010. <http://www.theness.com/the-starchild-project/>
Smith, B. et. al. "An anatomical study of a duplication 6p based on two sibs." American Journal of Medical Genetics. 3 Jun. 2005, Volume 20, Issue 4: 649-663.
Reference this article:
Dunning, Brian.
"The Case of the Strange Skulls." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
10 Mar 2009. Web.
2 Sep 2010. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4144>
Discuss!
Remember, you should always read with skepticism the comments of anyone too lame to put their real name & city.
It's also remarkable how farmers and railroad workers were able to identify human remains by sight, even from incomplete and/or strangely-shaped specimens. I guess schools back then devoted much more time to anatomy and field work techniques.
Cambias, Near Amherst
March 11, 2009 5:21am
Brian,
Not sure if this is relevant to your discussion here, but it could provide an example of what "good" science is all about. I'm sure you're familiar with the "hobbits" found on Flores island in Indonesia. Dubbed Homo floresiensis, they lived 30,000-40,000 years ago. Here's a wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis
I initially read about them in a National Geographic article a year ago or so.
marty, nc
March 12, 2009 10:19am
Why would you send a skull to the "American Investigating Museum" in Philadelphia while renowned anatomist Joseph Leidy was still alive and working at the Academy of Natural Science in that same city?
Leidy was also (more or less) the father of American paleontology and people commonly sent him fossils from all over the country.
Its interesting that googling "American Investigating Museum" only yields horned skull entries...hmmm...
Fun episode.
Greg, Philadelphia
March 13, 2009 4:20am
Back in '88-'89 I had a temp job where one of my co-workers had double sets of teeth. She had an extremely unhappy time of it as they simply didn't fit properly in her jaws and had to have repeated dental surgery for much of her life.
Robert Jase, New Britain, CT
March 13, 2009 5:04pm
Not many anomalies indicate "alien" or "Non-human"... weird things happen all the time. Dwarfism, hydrocephaly, extra vertebrae, gigantism, extra teeth, missing teeth, etc. ad infinitum.
Having worked as a volunteer in a modern museum, and being a bit croggled by how much sits in storage and how much was accumulated in the mid-late 1800s. That these skeletons have all disappeared shortly after being found, with NO official documentation... well it certainly smells like a tall tale.
TK, milwaukee
March 15, 2009 12:29pm
Good episode, but I wish Brian wouldn't say things like "the entire Internet has not a single reference..." That's not how the Internet works, which I think Brian knows, and it sounds amateurish to say things like that. The Internet is not a giant storehouse of information; lots of real information is not on the Internet, and lots of bad information -- noise -- is certainly on the Internet. What he really means is "a thorough search of major search engines."
And of course information on the Internet might not be indexed by search engines (if for example it's maintained by a company charging for it).
Failure to find information on the Internet, especially historical information, does not imply that the information does not exist. It's just an indicator.
Paul, Walnut Creek, CA
March 15, 2009 1:30pm
Well, Robert, this sounds fascinating. Any chance of letting us know her name, or the name of the dentist she visited? Any photos?
Can't imagine how the bone structure would look, but it could be rather interesting, and explain quite a bit.
Klaus, Munich, Germany
March 16, 2009 1:31am
Well well, trying to discount the alien connection to the skulls. We all know the head binding was done and those skulls will have 14 teeth or more per jaw. But the skulls that I photographed only contained 10 teeth. So how do you explain that the coneheads of peru that we excavated under the nasca lines only have 10 teeth? Humans have 14 or more,,,,,,,
Robert Connolly, Toronto
April 08, 2009 7:54pm
I'd like to klaus but that was more than 20 years ago & I just don't remember.
The second set didn't come up directly under the first, more like at a slight angle from their bases. Kind of like you see in shark jaws (though not pointy of course).
Robert Jase, New Britain, CT
April 14, 2009 8:34am
Quite a few years back, I worked with a tall skinny kid who was hired for, basically, grunt work. He was a nice enough kid but he never made a whole lot of sense. One day he said something to me that was somewhat nonsensical and he started to laugh hysterically. He was so much taller than me so I saw right into his mouth and I swear-- he had double rows of teeth! Human teeth, but in two rows like a shark. I was so horrified that I did not say anything-- which I now kinda regret.
BA, NE Ohio
June 14, 2009 1:43pm
i know where a giant skull and bones were found and berried back up. It is a wonderful feeling to know the truth,it takes all the stress away and opens up your mind to so many things.the truth be with us.
noe aguilera, edinburg tx
June 22, 2009 10:24pm
Problems With Over-retained Baby Teeth
Parents are often concerned when they see a "double row" of teeth developing in their 6-year-old's mouth. This should not be a cause for alarm, however. It occurs when the adult lower front teeth begin to erupt into the mouth, but the baby teeth have not fallen out yet. It is usually not necessary to have the over-retained primary incisors extracted in this situation, however.
Lower permanent incisors normally develop and erupt behind the primary incisors. Lower primary incisors can be over-retained when the adult teeth erupt too far away from the baby teeth. In this situation, the normal process of loosening (resorption) of the primary teeth may not occur.
.....It's possible in healthy children. That leads me to believe that those with no access to (sometimes expensive) dentistry could keep "baby" teeth indefinitely. In any case, when a person has a double row of teeth, this clearly explains why: because that person's "adult" teeth have erupted too far away from their "baby" teeth, which prevented the "baby" teeth from receiving their cue to fall out.
Sarah, Shreveport, LA
July 05, 2009 7:06pm
In 1932 a Univ. of Calif anthropology(?) professor went to Utah to investigate Coronado`s (?) cave. He was led to it by some Native Americans. Inside were some skeletons 12 feet high. These were brought to U C Berkeley Anthro. Dept. basement in crates where they still are. cf Oakland Tribune or SF Chronicle 1990`s=- don`t remember the year.
bolivadot, ticonk ny
July 29, 2009 8:11pm
I dont know much about your skulls but I do know about extra teeth. I had two complete rows of teeth top and bottom, it is not surprising at all that someone before would have shown this feature. I have found that extra teeth are relatively common, apparent;y not a full set as I had but partials are common. I just thought this might give some validity to the idea of two sets of teeth archeologicaly speaking considering I had to get those genetics from somwhere before me. Can two sets of teeth simply be an older form of human genetics? or a genetic change that hasnt lasted? I have always been very curious about this because you see the looks on dentists faces when they looked at my xrays. I have always been curious as to how many other people have ever had an entire extra set of teeth as I did, apparently from a dentists viewpoint none of them had ever heard of that happening before.
Just fascinated and curious and any extra info of any kind would be interesting. Thanks all.
Mountain, Troy/Idaho
September 22, 2009 11:22am
I wish to comment about the Peruvian elongated skulls. I agree with Robert Connolly. No amount of binding can INCREASE the cranial capacity of skulls, which was estimated to be in the region of 2500 cubic centimeters in these skulls ie TWO AND ONE HALF LITERS! No known human being EVER had such a skull capacity,not even the largest Neanderthal skull. Also they obviously represent related individuals, and look in no way deformed. There was also another enormous skull (3 liters) which was round and very wide. It did not look in any way pathological, nor did any of the others. There was obviously something very strange going on around that region, and no amount of so called "academic" disparagement can detract from that fact. Some "scientists", confronted by something which does not fit into their comfortable hypotheses, respond by trundling out some contrived and often ridiculous "explanations". Further research, by impartial scientists should be carried out. DNA should be interesting.
Dr RW Johnston, Inverness Scotland
November 01, 2009 3:44pm
When I was 14 yrs old a dentist extracted teeth from my palate (roof of mouth) in Argentina. I immigrated to USA and in this county a dentist told me that I have 3 roots in every tooth instead of 2 roots.
I also have 3 extra small ribs in the cervical area. (Also my mother)
I was born in Argentina, South America. My grandparents were Irish in both my mother and my father side. There was a great Irish migration to Argentina from 1860 - 1920.
I guess people that have European ancestry may have some traits inherited from a distant past. Could it be hybridization with Neanderthal? We do not know the genetic information from Neanderthal and contemporary human beings is different. However, we do not know if Neanderthal were so different, genetically speaking, from ancient forms of Cro-Magnon.
Hilda, Los Angeles, California
November 21, 2009 8:46pm
Evidently, Brian doesn't know if any answers to the questions he raises are factual. All he can do is agree with certain opinions. Presumably if this were 1400, Brian would concur with those who believed electricity was magic, the earth was flat, and flight was strictly for the birds. I already know about conventional wisdom, so glean nothing useful or novel from his observations.
Mark Gibbs, Leeds, UK
December 07, 2009 7:00pm
Double teeth, or the appearance of double teeth, are consistent with certain types of hypertrichosis. (excessive hairiness). In the 19th century several individuals with hypertrichosis (and alleged double teeth) gained much popular attention as Darwinian "missing links" between man and animal. So it's not much of a stretch to suggest that in the realm of Victorian popular science, double teeth equal missing link. This could explain the sudden surge in "skull with double teeth" hoaxes in the late 19th century, since alleged missing links were and are one of the most widely sought-after, and widely hoaxed, types of artifact.
Elizabeth J. Anderson, Austin, TX
April 18, 2010 5:31pm
how do they know fish grew legs for a fact, but they cant pin point where humans originated? it makes sense that aliens mated with neanderthals and created humans hence we are intellegent civilized primates! the ancient sumerians spoke of this long before jesus was born in a little place better known as the garden of eden.
cole hofmann, las vegas, NV
May 07, 2010 2:08am
"how do they know fish grew legs for a fact, but they cant pin point where humans originated? "
The origin of a species is a function of population dynamics, and thus takes place over a broad range of locations. It's not "One generation is monkey, the next is human", but rather a slow change (in human terms; very quick in geologic terms) to a population of a species.
As for aliens mating, humans and sponges can't produce viable offspring and we're at least in the same kingdom. The difference between humans and any alien is likely to be greater than the difference between humans an any other organism on this planet; thus it is unreasonable to expect them to have mated.
Gregory, Alabama
May 26, 2010 1:22pm
About the Sumerians. No they didn't. That statement is factually incorrect. It's based on the work of a man named Sitchen. Sitchen sort of taught himself how to read Cuneiform, the written language of the Sumerians but not really. Actual scholars of the Sumerians do not find his translations accurate.
Craig, Washington DC
June 26, 2010 12:06am
The bone is extremely strange, never seen that before.
Chris, Sweden
July 20, 2010 7:59am
I've seen some people who promote biblical literalism put out photoshoped pictures of 'giants', allegedly collaborated stories in the bible that once giants walked the earth.
Donovan Willett, Mobile, AL
July 22, 2010 1:37am
I've seen the Peruvian skulls to which you claim that bindings caused the deformities. I've also seen skulls that have actually been bound and other than the fact that they are both comprised of carbon-based bone and both lean toward the primatological, there are not many similarities.
Matt W, Greenville, SC
September 01, 2010 11:38am
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Conclusive proof that these bizarre skeletons did not exist:
Michael Jackson never owned any of them.
H. Tiberius Miser, Secret Underground Lair, Earth
March 10, 2009 12:12pm