Alien-like Skulls Discovered in Mexico Cemetery, Researchers Say

Researchers were stunned recently when they discovered numerous alien-like elongated skulls in a 1,000-year-old cemetery in Mexico, LiveScience.com reported.

While the find initially confounded and mesmerized scientists, closer inspection revealed the remains were human; the skulls had been meticulously warped over time into the bizarre, alien-like shapes. Just like science, always getting our hopes up and simultaneously dashing them in the process.

Researchers now believe the humans themselves deliberately deformed the skulls. The practice of deformation was once common in Central America in the past; many cultures were known to warp their children's heads from birth. But while the tradition was widespread, the researchers finding reveal the odd tradition was observed much further north than they initially discovered.

The surreal remains were found in the small Mexican village of Onavas. Residents of the hamlet stumbled upon the cemetery as they were building an irrigation canal through the area in 1999. The site is now believed to be the first pre-Hispanic cemetery found in the Mexican state of Sonora.

The burial site, known as El Cementerio, contained the remains of 25 human burials, LiveScience.com reported. Of those found, 13 bodies had purposefully deformed skulls, which were elongated and pointy at the back, and five had mutilated teeth.

Dental mutilation is the practice of filing or grinding teeth into unique, strange shapes; cranial deformation distort the normal growth of a child's skull by applying force, such as cloths to bind wooden boards against heads.

"Cranial deformation has been used by different societies in the world as a ritual practice, or for distinction of status within a group or to distinguish between social groups," said researcher Cristina García Moreno, an archaeologist at Arizona State University. "The reason why these individuals at El Cementerio deformed their skulls is still unknown."

"The most common comment I've read from people that see the pictures of cranial deformation has been that they think that those people were 'aliens,'" García added. "I could say that some say that as a joke, but the interesting thing is that some do think so. Obviously we are talking about human beings, not of aliens."

Of the 25 people buried at the site, 17 were children aged between 5 months and 16 years of age. Researchers found no signs of disease that would have lead to death, and as a result, some are now speculating attempted cranial deformation may be responsible for the deaths. They said that the high number of children represented in the cemetery further suggested that intentional skull warping could have caused the deaths, as it is believed the deaths could have been caused by force being applied against the skull.

García and her team finished analyzing of the skeletal remains in November, according to LiveScience.com. The researchers intend to submit their findings to either the journal American Antiquity or the journal Latin American Antiquity.