Alien Skull Discovery Perhaps a Hoax; Ancient Practice of Deforming Skull Could be a Pointer

By Amrutha Gayathri: Subscribe to Amrutha's

November 24, 2011 2:18 AM EST

The skeletal structure with an oversized skull and miniature rib cage, discovered in Peru recently, has been creating quite a buzz, with several anthropologists claiming that it cannot possibly belong to any human ethnic groups on earth and thus has come from another planet.

The claims sound completely farfetched, even as Peruvian anthropologist Renato Davila Riquelme, who made the discovery, has declared that the remains are those of a child. So who are these people celebrating the discovery of an ancient alien? As of now, they are unidentified. The "alien skull" buzz gained momentum after a Peruvian news site RPP, published an article featuring a number of anonymous quotes from "noted" (but strangely unnamed) Spanish and Russian scientists and anthropologists, who claimed that the structure "clearly" belonged to an alien.
"It has a non-human appearance," a statement from the scientists read. "The head is triangular and big, almost the same size as the boy... yes, it's an extraterrestrial being."

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Peruvian scientists have discovered a mummy with large eyes and a triangular head, leading some UFO enthusiasts and scientist to call it an alien life-form. Source: Twitter/brazilweirdnews/RPP

But even for someone who isn't an anthropologist, the structure looks significantly similar to that of humans, probably that of a child.  Moreover, the scientific community has long-denied the hypothesis that aliens would look like humans, and has speculated that the probability of human-looking alien life form is extremely low.  Critics of the "alien skull" claims say that the skull "could be that of a hydrocephalic child or a tribal member who has undergone tribal rituals involving skull modification, an ancient practice with thousands of years of history.
Artificial cranial deformation dates back to 45,000 BC in Neanderthal skulls, and to the Proto-Neolithic Homo sapiens component (12th millennium BCE). The ritualistic deformation usually begins just after the birth of a child till the next couple of years until the desired shape has been reached or the child rejects the apparatus used to modify the skull. It was practiced generally to signify group affiliation or to demonstrate social status.
Photographs of skulls from the Andean Paracas culture, deformed artificially, show considerable similarity to the skull now discovered in Peru.

Skulls from the Andean Paracas culture. Author: Marcin Tlustochowicz/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons