Is the past being tampered with?

The coneheads are the most outlandish, mysterious, unquestionably factual anomaly of the ancient past. They seem to be the subject of some sort of conspiracy to hide them, and can’t be explained (only dismissed) with current science. They are a problem because they give rise to all sorts of fantastical claims that could be true. They are a rabbit-hole that once you circle it, are almost certain to fall in.

They are called ‘coneheads’ because modern anthropology ignores them and hasn’t bestowed a name on them. If you want to search for them use ‘conehead skulls’, ‘elongate skulls’ or ‘dolichocephalism’ (although the last is the technical term for ‘elongate skulls’ and is the least valuable to search). I went on a search for good, mainstream sources, and found almost nothing.

The best place to start is just by looking at them here

Mainstream science dismisses coneheads as simply examples of cranial deformation, or head binding. Well, there sure has been a bunch of that, but 1) some skulls exhibit inexplicable physical 'anomalies' (discussed below); and 2) why would people the world-over engage in a cruel and sometimes deadly mis-forming of their children's head?

The best summary I can find (and it isn't anything more than a blog) is this overview by “Dr. Terry Williard”: What’s Up with the Cone Heads and Cone Heads part 2: Who Were They?

Here are the basics from Wiki in a disputed entry that was later removed:

Testing of these [coneheads] have illustrated that, on average, the cranial capacity is 1.5 liters, approximately 25% larger than contemporary skulls, and weigh as much as 60 percent more. Also, eye orbit cavities are significantly larger than contemporary skulls, and the jaws are both larger and thicker. Moreover, the presence of 2 small holes in the back of the Chongos skulls, called foramen, indicate that blood flow and perhaps nerves exited the skull at the back in order to feed the skin tissue. This would seem to indicate that nature did this, and not cranial deformation.[13][dubious – discuss]

Wiki: Artifical Cranial Deformation

Dubious indeed! In fact, many coneheads are almost double human cranial capacity, with unconfirmed reports of much bigger skulls. Illustrating you can never trust Wiki, the last sentence in the article is "There is no statistically significant difference in cranial capacity between artificially deformed skulls and normal skulls in Peruvian samples.[28]" Head binding cannot increase the volume of the brain, see e.g. the Flat-head Indians

In the side-by-side pictures of skulls above, it sure looks like the conehead cranial capacity is substantially larger, and the skulls are clearly of greater mass. The jaws are also bigger than humans. The soft, red curlly hair is an anomaly for the area.

The censored Wiki entry (and certainly not the current re-write) does not mention one of the most compelling differences. Human skulls have three main plates, which make up the upper portion of the cranial area (frontal plate and two parietal plates behind). There are only two plates in true conehead skulls (one frontal and one parietal). You can't do that with head-binding!

Conehead :

Normal skull:

Coneheads have been promoted by a travel agent who specializes in mystery tours, Brien Foerster. He says that he had genetic tests done on the skulls and the lab report stated:

“Whatever the sample labeled 3A has came from – it had mtDNA with mutations unknown in any human, primate or animal known so far. The data are very sketchy though and a LOT of sequencing still needs to be done to recover the complete mtDNA sequence. But a few fragments I was able to sequence from this sample 3A indicate that if these mutations will hold we are dealing with a new human-like creature, very distant from Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans. I am not sure it will even fit into the known evolutionary tree.”

Coneheaded beings clearly existed, some of the skulls weren’t the product of deformation of typical human skulls, and other physical characteristics are unique to them. They must have been at least a separate human sub-species distinct from Homo Sapien Sapien, and appear to disproportionately have made up ruling classes, at least in Peru, Egypt and Central America. The size of their heads suggests at least some of them were very large--one estimate gave a height of up to 12 to 15 feet tall for skulls so large.

Foerster with big head:

WARNING: Entering the rabbit hole!

Which brings us to giants.

There is a lot of archaeological evidence of coneheads, but not much in the historical record (with the exception of some Egyptian stuff and ‘myths’). Giants, however, are prevalent in every ancient history. But when we come to archaeological evidence of giants, things get murky. There are plenty of pictures of giant skeletons on the web and I always assumed they were all photoshopped -- but now I wonder.

I think most ancient documents and stories were told as true. The ancients weren’t stupid. Writing was a rare skill used mostly for important documents. The earliest example of literature is the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is considered fiction, but scholars generally agree that Gilgamesh was a King about 2500 B.C. The epic ‘novel’ dates from a few hundred years later. It reports Gilgamesh was a giant that had a bunch of fantastic adventures.

The Old Testament and related books are replete with stories of giants—when the Israelis sent out scouts as they were entering the Holy Land, they reported back that the place was lousy with the Repaites (giants). Everyone knows the story of David and Goliath, but Goliath reportedly had six fingers and six badass brothers as big as he was. The Old Testament reports that Moses feared King Og, among the last of the giants, but on the Lord's assurances, the Israelites killed him, his sons and his army. Og's bed measured 14 feet in length.

Reports of giant skeletons come from all over the globe, and the U.S. has a bunch of them. Many burial mounds were dug up when the settlers came to America and there are many written (including newspaper) reports that giants were found. The Indians said the mounds were from a race that pre-dated them. Cases often describe skulls so large that they would easily fit over a man’s head. See, e.g. Giants and old newspaper articles listed therein.

Then there are the stories of “Patagonian giants”, including a report by Charles Darwin of an over-sized tribe.

What to make of this? I’m suspicious. There are many reports of ‘coneheads’ being removed from museum collections, discoveries suddenly disappearing, and history being re-written or ignored. For instance,

It is even more interesting that in many of the museums (as of 2011), they have vanished from display, being kept ‘hidden’ in the archives, but why? In most of the museums where you can see them, they will not let you take pictures unless you bring out academic credentials and say you are doing research. When I have asked I always get a similar almost scripted answer, “they do not want to scare the public with seeing mutated heads.”

http://www.drterrywillard.com/whats-up-with-the-cone-heads/

And, the strange history of the shrinking Cro-Magnon man:

It is also a bit strange that the term Cro-Magnon has been eradicated from the scientific papers and books and substituted the general term Early or Archaic Homo Sapiens. Cro-Magnon was considered to be the tallest of the homo-species, generally more than 7 feet tall, but today Early or Archaic Homo sapiens is said to only have been as tall as modern people - as you and me. A few illustrations comparing Cro-Magnon with Homo Sapiens can still be found on the internet - and the difference in height is startling! It is not only Cro-Magnon that seems to suddenly have shrunk, the Neanderthal man, Homo Neanderthalensis, is now said to have been an average of 1.64 meters tall: Earlier he was said to be taller and more muscular than Homo Sapiens. Of course new and better research can have given other figures than earlier, and that the figures we have today are the correct ones. We must also remember that skeletal remains very often just are small pieces of bone - it is not so that the archaeologists dig up whole skeletons that can be easily measured! But it is still a bit worrying that data for earlier findings have been changed when it comes to height - especially when it comes to Homo Species that was said to have been very, very tall!

Wiki (current) says Cro-Magnon was 5'9", but had a brain 20% larger than modern man. Let's see: add 20% to average modern height, and you get about seven feet.

This is what a 7' 8" man looks like:

The strange, recent case of the Kennewick Man is instructive. A Washington State anthropologist found a complete skeleton of what he identified as a Caucasian man in a riverbank. He assumed it was a settler, but was shocked to find an arrow point lodged in his pelvis used by natives from about 9,000 years ago. The remains were reviewed by Dr. James Chatters, a forensic anthropologist, who concluded that the "presence of caucasoid traits [and a] lack of definitive Native-American characteristics" led him to conclude that the body belonged to a European. The state anthropologist sent a sample of bone out for age dating, and sure enough, it came back at 9,200 years. That would change things! According to theory, there were no Caucasians (or caucasoids) in the area until about 8,500 years later.

Within a couple of days, marshals showed up at his door and confiscated the remains because of native rights. There ensued a big court battle, with the bones eventually disappearing from sight. Ultimately there was a court order scientific inspection of the bones (the general conclusion was that the body was from a small group of Polynesians).

I had in my files a long piece that discussed the facts of the case from The Duke Chronicles, "9200 year old skeleton may upset American archaeology" that has mysteriously disappeared. Don't know why -- I mean, they maintain an archive.

Recently, a scientific group has announced that based on genetic testing Kennewick Man is obviously related to Native American groups in the area, just as the Native Americans always said. Hence, the remains will be buried under tons of boulders. Everything's over, move along, nothing to see here.

The point of the Kennewick Man story is that within days the authorities swooped in and seized anthropological evidence that could have changed history. Exactly why? Similarly, museums don't display coneheads because they don't want the public seeing mutated heads? They're joking, right? Why has Cro-Magnon man been shrinking? What else in history is being sent down the memory hole?

Hey, what about those darn giants?

RedQ

Note: This one of my first posts and is discussed in Intro to RedQ in the Introduceyourself sub-forum.