Ancient Humans Were Wiser: Scientists Found Two Babies Wearing Skulls Of Dead Kids As Helmets

Every now and then, archaeologists end up pulling out something strange from the ground that gives us a perspective of how life was hundreds of years ago. And recently, a bunch of archaeologists in Salango, Ecuador discovered an ancient burial site that took creepy to a whole new level.

The burial ground they were excavating revealed 11 dead bodies from the Guangala culture. These 11 included eight infants, two adults and a child, buried with an array of grave goods. However, two infants were buried with their heads encased in the skulls of other children. The entire burial dates back around 2100 to 2600 years ago.

According to Sara Juengst from the University of North Carolina, "In this report, we present a mortuary tradition without known parallels. Heads in South America have long been linked with ritual, symbolic, and real power, but these data from Salango present a highly specific mortuary practice in which the infant dead were interred wearing a 'helmet' made from crania of other children.¡±

The infant was aged around 18 months old with his head wrapped with the skull of a child aged between 4 to 12 years old. The second infant was aged between 6 to 9 months with the skull of a child between 2 to 12 years.

The outer skulls had cut marks and hinged straight edges that suggested that these helmets were carved right around the time the child died. The helmets fit snugly around the infant¡¯s heads.

Researchers further added, "It seems likely that the modified cranium was still fleshed when it was processed, due to the fact that the extra fragments were positioned in anatomical position, and juvenile crania often do not hold together, depending on the timing of cranial sutural fusion." This means there were still small soft tissue parts holding the helmet-skull together.

They feel that this ritual was designed to protect the children from wild souls that could cause them harm. They said "The extra crania included with infant burials at Salango may represent an attempt to ensure the protection of these 'presocial and wild' souls. The surrounding of infant heads by stone ancestor figurines underscores this, indicating a concern with protecting and further empowering the heads."

They¡¯re conducting DNA and isotope analyses to specifically know when were such rituals carried out.