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Skulls with 30% more capacity
The skulls lack the sagittal line, the ridge along the top of an ordinary skull, and their capacity runs 20 to 30 percent larger. Head binding only flattens the shape and does not increase capacity, so a manipulated skull does not explain them. Some of the skulls belong to tiny bodies with enormous heads.
A tribe in Zimbabwe offers a comparison: instead of five toes, people have two long appendages that splay out, and their hands look affected too. Multiple people in the tribe have it, which makes it a genetic anomaly passed down. A large-skull anomaly could be inherited the same way, whether from a mutation, a disease, or some other genetic quirk.
If the synaptic density matched ours or exceeded it, a brain 30 percent larger would mean a very different level of intelligence. A friend who went to Peru recently to see the skulls found them missing. Genetic testing of remains is believed to be under way.
How does head binding reshape a skull?
Artificial cranial deformation applies bands, boards, or cloth to an infant's head, whose skull plates are still soft and unfused. As the brain grows, the skull follows the direction of least resistance, so the head lengthens as it narrows. The practice appears across the Andes, Mesoamerica, Europe, and Asia. Studies of deformed skulls find that cranial volume stays within the normal range.
Does a bigger brain mean more intelligence?
Neanderthal brains averaged around 1,500 cubic centimeters, larger than the modern human average of about 1,350. Across modern people, a 2015 meta-analysis by Jakob Pietschnig and colleagues found a correlation of about 0.24 between brain volume and measured intelligence. Brain organization, wiring, and the density of connections matter alongside size. Sperm whale brains, at roughly 7,800 grams, are the largest on Earth.
What causes split hands and feet in Zimbabwe?
The condition is ectrodactyly, also called split-hand or split-foot malformation, and in the Vadoma people of Zimbabwe it passes down in a dominant pattern. Researchers have linked related forms to a duplicated stretch of DNA on chromosome 7. The community's relative isolation helped the trait spread. Geneticists have described it in the medical literature since the early twentieth century.
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