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Artificial Cranial Deformation in the Shanidar 1 and 5 NeandertalsAuthor(s): Erik Trinkaus

Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Apr., 1982), pp. 198-199Published by: The University of Chicago Presson behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for AnthropologicalResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2742361.

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MILLER, R. J. 1981. Biological relationships n prehistoric entralArizona. Paper presented at the 50th annual meeting of theAmericanAssociation fPhysicalAnthropologists,etroit, Mich.REED, E. K. 1948, The Western Pueblo archaeologicalcomplex.El Palacio 55:9-15.. 1950. Eastern-central rizona rchaeology n relation o the

WesternPueblos. Soutthwesternouirnal fAnthropology:120-38.SPICER, E. H. 1962. Cycles f onquest. ucson: University f ArizonaPress.UPHAM, S. 1980. Political continuity nd change in the plateauSouthwest.UnpublishedPh.D. dissertation,Arizona State Uni-versity, empe, Ariz.

Artificialranial eformationn theShanidar and5 Neandertals'by RIK TRINKAUSDepartmentf Anthropology,eabody Museum, HarvardUniversity,ambridge, ass. 02138, U.S.A. 29 ix 81Artificialranial deformations one of the most widespreadforms f human intentional ody modification or estheticpurposes Dingwall 1931). Researchon the Neandertals romShanidarCave in Iraq shows that this practicemay not belimited o recent umans.The Shanidar1 and 5 cranialvaults(fig. 1) exhibit contoursthat contrastwith those of otherNeandertals nd suggest hat theyexperienced ranial defor-mation.Shanidar and 5 derive rom heupperMousterianevelsofShanidarCave and date to the first alfofthe ast glacial,atleast 45,000 years ago (Solecki 1960, 1961). Their facial andpostcranial keletons re morphologicallyimilar o thoseofotherNeandertals rom entralAsia, the Levant, and Europeand distinct rom hoseof otherfossilHomosapiens Stewart1977,Trinkaus 1977,n.d.; Stringer nd Trinkaus 1981). It isthereforessumed that their cranial vaults, if undeformed,wouldbe morphologicallyloseto thoseof otherNeandertals.The Shanidar and 5 craniaweredamagedpostmortemndhave required econstruction.heremay be somedistortionin the orientations f theirparietal bones (Stewart 1959,Trinkausn.d.). However,none of theboneswas warpedpost-mortem,ndall of the oinsfollow henatural ontours f thepreserved ortions.Any inaccuracies n the reconstructionsshould eminimal. he median agittal rc s largely ompletefromnasionto opisthion n Shanidar1 and fromnasion tolambdaon Shanidar .Artificial ranial deformation mong recent humans isusually producedby binding n infant'shead shortly fterbirthwitha band aroundthe frontal nd occipital regions,with or without board (Dingwall 1931, Blackwood andDanby 1955, Brown 1981). Pressure s maintainedon theinfant's ead untilthe desired hape is achievedor the nfantrejects hebinding. his technique roduces rontal lattening,variableoccipitalflattening,nd increased arietalcurvatureand height Brown 1981). Frequently ssociatedwiththesechangesncurvature re prebregmaticrontal epressionsndan elevation f ambda.Similardeformationan be producedbyheadpressing,nwhich hemothermanually ppliespressureto her infant'shead (Macgillivray1852); the changesfromheadpressing re usually ess pronounced han thoseproducedbyheadbinding.I Variation nthemanner nd duration f pplication fthesetechniquesan ead toa continuumnone population rom on-deformedohighly eformedrania.This frequently akes tdifficulto determinewhether specific ranium hould be

A-N

B I

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mmMSFiG. 1. Lateral views fthe Shanidar1 (A) and Shanidar5 (B) crania.The positions f nasion (N), bregma B), and lambda (L) are indi-cated. Missing portions n the Shanidar1 cranial vault,but not onthatofShanidar 5,havebeen reconstructed ithfiller. he Shanidar5 posterior rontal nd anterior arietalmediansagittalcontour p-pears slightly rregular, ince there s a narrowdepression romhealed scalp wound about 17mm anterior fbregma nd a portionofthe anteromedial eftparietaland most of theright arietal arelacking. Both of the crania exhibit the frontalflattening, ighparietal curvature, nd elevationof the parietal region ssociatedwith rtificial ranial deformation.

I I would ike to thank P. Brown,W. W. Howells, M. D. Russell,F. H. Smith,T. D. Stewart, nd M. H. Wolpoff ortheirhelpfulsuggestions and Muayed Sa'id al-Damirji, Director-GeneralofAntiquities f raq, for ccess to the Shanidar fossils.This researchhas been supported y NSF grantsBNS76-14344and BNS-8004578.198 CURRENT A NTHROPOLOGY

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TABLE 1MEDIAN SAGITTAL CURVATURE ANGLES AND BREGMA AND LAMBDA RADII OF THE SHANIDAR 1 AND 5 AND OTHER NEANDERTAL CRANIA

FRONTAL LAMBDAANGLE/ RADIUS/FRONTAL PARIETAL PARIETAL OCCIPITAL BREGMA LAMBDA BREGMAANGLE ANGLE ANGLE ANGLE RADIUS RADIUS RADIUS

(0) (0) (7) (0) (mm) (mm) (()Shanidar1. 144 134 107.5 113 120.0 114.0 95.0Shanidar5. 147 136 108.1 ... 116.0 133.0 113.7Neandertals

Mean ............ 138.9 144.8 96.3 108.8 117.6 111.5 94.8SD (N) ........... 2.2 (10) 3.6 (10) 2.4 (8) 9.0 (3) 4.0 (6) 7.3 (6) 4.2 (6)Range ........... 131-143 140-152 93.2-100.2 101-118 113.5-125.0 102.5-123.2 89.1-99.6NOTE: TheNeandertalamplencludes mud ,La Chapelle-aux-Saints,Circeo , La Ferrassie ,Gibraltar , Marillac ,Neandertal,La Quina5 andunnumbered,ala 1, and Spy 1 and2. The oneNear Eastern pecimen, mud , s metricallylose othe verallNeandertalmeans.considered eformed,nd the conclusion hat it was inten-tionallymodifiedmustremain o a certain xtent ubjective.The mostnoticeable spect of the Shanidar 1 and 5 cranialvaults s their rontal latteningnd parietalcurvature. heirfrontal ngles a greater ngle ndicates ess curvature fthemedian agittal rc [Howells 1973]) are at the upper imits fthe Neandertal range of variation,whereas their parietalangles are below the known Neandertal range of variation(table 1). Although one of their rontalnd parietal ngles sexceptional y itself, ll of thembeing near the imitsof theknownNeandertalrangesof variation, he combination f aflat rontalrc anda highly urved agittal rc s quite unusual.The ratiosof their rontal nd parietal ngles re well outsideoftherangeof variation f otherNeandertals, eing4.67 and4.92 standarddeviations rom Neandertalmean. Associatedwith these curvatures f the frontal nd parietal arcs is anelevation f the posterior arietalbones,especially n Shani-dar5.The Shanidar cranium lso exhibits prebregmaticlatten-ing of the frontal one for distance f about 60 mm anteriorfrom regma.However, t exhibits eitherheoccipital latten-ing nor the elevationof lambda frequently ssociatedwithcranialdeformation.ts occipital nglefalls n themiddle oftherangeofvariation fa smallNeandertal ample, nd theratioof ts ambda and bregma adii perpendicularrojectionsfrom hetransmeatalxisto ambdaandbregma, ollowinghetechnique f Howells [1973]),a measureof the elevationoflambda relative o bregma, s similarly lose to a Neandertalmean table 1).TheShanidar cranial ault, ncontrast,xhibits oposteriorfrontal lattening.et its ambda radius s wellabove a Nean-dertalrangeof variation, nd the ratio of its lambda andbregmaradii is 4.50 standarddeviationsfrom Neandertalmean table 1). This ndicates hat t had considerableccipitalflatteningnoneof tsoccipitalbonesurvives), ince n recenthumans thiselevationof lambda is associatedwithoccipitalflattening.Shanidar1and 5 thus xhibit everal f the moreprominentfeatures ssociated with cranial deformationmong recenthumans,which uggests hat their ranialvaults were artifi-ciallydeformed. ther ossible ausesappear ess ikely.Thereis no evidence hateither f their ranialvaultswerepatho-logic, ther hanminor calpwounds.Their distinctivehapescouldnot have been producedby the small amount ofpost-mortem istortion resentn thespecimens,nd it is unlikelythat their vault shapes represent regional variant,sinceotherWesternAsian Neandertals Amud 1, Tabuin Cl, andTeshik-Tash ) and early modern-appearingumans Qafzeh3, 6, and 9 and Skhuil , 5, and 9) exhibitnormalvault con-figurationsor Neandertalsor recenthumansrespectively.2

Therefore,he mostreasonablenterpretationf their nusualvault configurationsppears to be that they experiencedartificialranialdeformation.It is difficulto inferwhich deformationechniquemighthave beenused on Shanidar and 5, but the bsence f xtremeflattening,xcept possiblyon the Shanidar5 occipitalbone,suggests hateither lexible ands orhead pressingwas used.The contrasts etween heShanidar1 and 5 vaultsprobablyreflect ifferencesn thepositioningndduration f the ppliedpressure.This nferredresence f rtificialranialdeformationmongthe Shanidar Neandertals mplies a heretofore oorlydocu-mented ersonal sthetic ense mong hese arlyhumans. heappearanceof thispractice t the sametime nhumanevolu-tion as the first videnceof intentional urial of the dead(Harrold1980) and prolonged urvival f the nfirmTrinkausand Zimmerman 982) would suggest a behavioralpatternallied with hat of early natomicallymodern umans.

2 The geologicallyolder Shanidar 2 and 4 Neandertals,whichderivefromdifferentopulationsthan Shanidar 1 and 5, are too

ReferencesitedBLACKWOOD,., and P. M. DANBY. 1955. A study of artificial

cranial deformationn New Britain. Journalof theRoyal Anthro-pological nstitute 5:173-91.BROWN,P. 1981. Artificial ranial deformation: component nthevariationof PleistoceneAustralianAboriginal rania. Archaeologyin Oceania. n press,DINGWALL, E. J. 1931.Artificialranial deformation: contributionto the tudyof ethnicmutilations. ondon: John Bale, Sons andDanielsson.HARROLD, . B. 1980. A comparative nalysis of Eurasian Palaeo-lithicburials. WorldArchaeology2:195-211.HOWELLS,W. W. 1973. Cranial variation n man. PeabodyMuseumPapers 67.MACGILLIVRAY,. 1852. Narrative f the Voyageof H.M.S. Rattle-snake.London: T. and W. Boone.SOLECKI, R. S. 1960. Three adult Neanderthal skeletons fromShanidarCave, northernraq. AnnualReportof theSmithsonianInstitutionor 1959, pp. 603-35.-. 1961.New anthropological iscoveries t Shanidar,northernIraq. Transactions f heNew YorkAcademy f ciences23: 690-99.STEWART,T. D. 1959. The restored hanidar skull. Annual Reportof he mithsoniannstitutionor 1958, pp. 473-80.-. 1977. The Neanderthal skeletal remains from ShanidarCave, Iraq: A summaryof findings o date. Proceedings f theAmerican hilosophical ociety 21:121-65.STRINGER,C. B., and E. TRINKAUS. 1981. The Shanidar Neander-thal crania, in Aspects of human evolution. dited by C. B.Stringer, p. 129-65.London:Taylorand Francis.TRINKAUS, E. 1977. The Shanidar 5 Neanderthal skeleton.Sumer33:35-41.. n.d. The ShanidarNeandertals. eabody Museum Papers. Inpreparation.TRINKAUS, E., and M. R. ZIMMERMAN.1982. Trauma among theShanidar Neandertals. American Journal of Physical Anthro-pology.n press.

incomplete o ndicatewhether heir raniawere rtificially eformed.The preserved ortionsof the Shanidar 2 craniumsuggestthat itprobablywas notdeformedStringernd Trinkaus1981).Vol.23 * No. 2 * April1982 199