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Christine Keat
Professor Donna Nash
ATY 308
29 November 2014
A Critical Examination of the Claim “Elongated Skulls Found in Peru Are Evidence of NonHumans”
Reports have been circulating on the internet and over television that the elongated skulls
found in the areas of coastal Peru that were once inhabited by the Paracas people are not
completely human. There are claims that they are either alien skulls, or the skulls of humanalien offspring. Chief among the proponents of these claims is Brien Foerster, an author and
frequent guest expert on the cable television show Ancient Aliens.
I will be examining evidence to determine whether these skulls are alien or human.
Foerster claims that there is evidence of non-human DNA in the skulls, and that the Paracas
people mysteriously appeared out of nowhere and disappeared with the arrival of the warlike
Nazca people in their territory. I will review data including the appearance and DNA results of
the skulls, the documentation of the archeological assemblages that modified skulls are
unearthed in, and the development of the Paracas culture. I will conclude by discussing the
possible motivation behind Foerster’s claims.
Skull Shape and DNA
If the skull is alien in shape, the evidence will show that there is no way that humans
could have artificially altered the shape of their skulls, and the results of DNA testing will
positively exclude the presence of human genes. According to Brien Foerster, author and
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associate of the Paracas History Museum, samples of hair, skin, bone and teeth were taken from
skulls belonging to the museum and sent to Lloyd Pye, who has forwarded the samples to a
genetic laboratory used by the United States government in order to obtain genetic testing. The
results are said to open the possibility of extraterrestrial life on Earth. In an interview for the
Ancient-Origins website, Foerster states “due to the fact that the geneticist has found segments of
DNA that don’t correspond with anything, I think it is doubtful that they are a separate breed of
humanity” and quotes Pye as saying “these are not human beings”. (Ancient-Origins.net 2014)
The results are questionable. The lab which supposedly reached these conclusions is not
named, except to claim that they are occasionally used by the United States government. When
questioned about possibly having the results verified by another lab, Foerster claimed that other
samples have been sent to “Dr Melba Ketchum from Texas who, of course, is embroiled heavily
in Big Foot studies” (Ancient-Origins.net 2014). Mentioning Big Foot does not lend to the
credibility of the second lab, and neither does the inclusion of Pye in the project. Lloyd Pye had
been affiliated with another questionable project, the “Star Child” prior to his death. Were the
preliminary lab results results truly accurate and unquestionable, it would be expected that they
would be released to the scientific community through reputable journals or to the public through
traditional media; that publicity is lacking in this case. This so-called discovery of scientific and
historical importance is announced only through websites and internet news sites, and on the
cable television series Ancient Aliens.
These skulls have been stored, displayed and handled by various people over the years,
and so there is no way to prove that they have not become contaminated. The genetic reports
purportedly show that there are DNA modifications that do not correspond to anything known
among humans. Even if this is an accurate result from an uncontaminated sample, it does not
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rule out the possibility that this is a modification that can occur within human DNA. The claim
by a reporter that GenBank is a “database that contains every single piece of all recognized
genetic records in the entire world,” (Ruble 2014) is misleading, because certainly there are
genetic records that have yet to be recognized, and there is no way of knowing which samples
were tested and if they were contaminated.
Aside from questionable results that have yet to be verified by further testing or an
independent analysis by another lab, there is the question of the shape of the skull. Brien
Foerster claims that there are less bones in some of the skulls, and that there are mysterious holes
in them.
“Of the 5 physical factors, pointed out by Lloyde Pye and myself, which are not at
all common to Homo sapiens, are two that I will mention. One is the presence of
2 small holes in the back of the skull, perpendicular to the cranial suture present in
the parietal plate of the skull. Every normal human skull is composed of 3 major
bone plates; the frontal plate, which ends at the upper part of the forehead, and the
2 parietal plates which lie behind this, intersecting the frontal plate making a “T”
shape. The holes are thought by Lloyd to be natural; every human jaw has a small
hole on either side which is for nerves and blood vessels to exit and feed the tissue
there; these 2 holes at the back of the skull may perform the same function for the
elongated skull.” (Foerster 2014). This illustration is included:
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The illustration is not of the complete skull, which would be useful in determining which
portion of the skull is being shown. Also, these holes should not be present on any human skulls
and the human parietal bones should always be separated if Foerster and Pye’s argument is to be
believed. This ignores the observable incidence of humans whose sagittal sutures fuse
prematurely, leaving the skull to appear to have only one parietal bone. This condition, known
as craniostenosis, has been recorded among humans since Hippocrates’ time, according to
Gordon in his article in the British Medical Journal. The illustrations included bear resemblance
to the so-called alien skulls, but are of living humans:
(Gordon 1959)
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Indeed, Foerster mentions the sagittal suture while arguing that there is only one
parietal bone – if there is only one bone, the suture would not be present. Humans also have two
holes, one on either side of the sagittal suture, that are known as parietal foramina and allow for
veins to carry blood to either side of the skull. Foerster acknowledges that humans have similar
holes, but misleads his audience into believing that they would only be found at the jaw.
Examination of the Graves
If the skulls were excavated from grave sites, there will be evidence of alien grave goods
or funerary rites. Every known culture has certain burial traditions and methods of preparing and
interring the dead. Presumably an alien culture that inters its dead also has its own methods of
physically preparing the body for burial, and unique traditions that are honored. When modified
skulls were found in archeological expeditions, detailed notes were taken of the location and
condition of everything excavated. No unexpected artifacts were discovered and cataloged, and
the skulls themselves were simply referred to by the type of modification they appeared to
exhibit. In their 2001analysis of the collection of trophy heads excavated during the Marshall
field expeditions to Peru in 1925, Williams and her colleagues used the following criteria to
record their observations: a general inventory of the remains and their condition, a determination
of age and sex of the individual, the cranial deformation present, other features, modifications
performed after death in order to turn the skulls into trophies, and the associated artifacts that
were found with the remains. Different degrees of cranial modification were noted, in detailed
language that never indicated anything out of the ordinary or inhuman. Their reporting of
“Anteroposterior deformation. The frontal bone is slightly flattened. Bregmatic elevation and
lateral parietal expansion are observed. Asymmetric reshaping of the cranium has resulted in
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more pronounced flattening of the left vault.” (Williams 2001) for one individual is typical of the
observations made for every skull during this examination.
The remains that have been excavated up until now have all been found in graves along
with only native grave goods, and buried in a manner consistent with the funerals of these native
people. Several journal articles describe the conditions in which the burials were found, and
none have indicated anything out of the realm of what was expected to be found in native grave
sites of the ancient Peruvian cultures. In her excavations at Alto del Molino, for example,
Silverman makes the following notes regarding sub-Huaca burials, “Burials 1, 4, 5 and 6 were
associated with unimpressive burial offerings consisting of shells and undiagnostic potsherds.”
(Silverman et al 1997). She also mentions in her article that human remains are studied by
physical anthropologists; presumably these scientists would be able to determine if skeletal
remains were human. The procedures followed by archeologists ensures that anything unusual
or remarkable found at burial sites would be catalogued and studied.
Physical and Cultural Characteristics of the Paracas
There has been a claim that the Paracas people were different in appearance from other
cultures in the area. This is according to Brien Foerster in an interview published on the
Ancient-Origins website:
“There is a certain percentage of their ancestry that comes from another part of
the world because they also, amongst the royalty, seem to have had reddish-brown
hair which is not a native American characteristic, and they were reasonably tall.
Some specimens we found were 5’10 to 6 feet to even taller in height and that is
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quite atypical of a Native American person 2,000+ years ago living on the coast
of Peru.”[www.ancient-origins.net 2014]
None of the published work by any recognized, credible source that I have come across has
indicated any unusual physical characteristics as far as height or hair color based on detailed
study of skeletal remains, clothing articles, and artwork. Foerster does not back up his claim
with any facts.
As to the claim regarding the mysterious appearance and disappearance of the Paracas
culture, there are clear lines of development for the Paracas people noted by archeologists and
anthropologists. In 1957, Strong noted a “newly defined” stage between Paracas and Nazca,
referred to as “Proto-Nazca” in his article Paracas, Nazca and Tiahuanacoid Cultural
Relationships in South Coastal Peru. Similarly, Silverman discussed the settlement patterns of
the Paracas culture in the Nazca river basin in her 1994 article New Data on the Early Horizon
Occupation of the Rio Grande de Nazca Drainage, Peru. This indicates that decades of study
have taken place regarding the Paracas culture without any indication of mystery surrounding the
establishment and dissolution of this group of people.
Many ancient cultures in South America apparently attributed special meaning to human
heads. References to “trophy heads” are found throughout the academic literature about the
Paracas and Nazca. Skulls of the dead were kept and decorated by the living. They were buried
with the owners as grave goods. They were depicted on pottery of both cultures. DeLeonardis
notes that artistic representations of heads are often given fertility or agricultural themes, in the
article The Body Context: Interpreting Early Nasca Decapitated Burials. The process for
preparing and decorating the heads is also noted by DeLeonardis.
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Summary and Motive
The claims that these modified skulls are proof of aliens living among us or breeding
with us can mostly be traced back to Brien Foerster. According to his biography, Foerster is the
author of 15 books about ancient mysteries; self-proclaimed “head honcho” of a touring business
specializing in Inca, Paracas, and Nasca sites in Peru; and is associated with the Paracas History
Museum. (HiddenIncaTours.com 2014). He has also made several appearances on the cable
television show Ancient Aliens. The idea that he is affiliated with a museum would lend
credibility to his claims, but the museum is a small local business rather than a well-known
reputable museum with ties to academia, and Foerster has the curator of the museum on the
payroll of his tour company. His claims of amazing discoveries are nothing more than publicity
for his books and business ventures. They also get him on television, which increases his fame
and credibility.
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Bibliography
Ancient-Origins
2013-2014. Ancient-Origins. http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-humanorigins/initial-dna-analysis-paracas-transcript-399284, accessed November 28, 2014.
DeLeonardis, L.
2000 The Body Context: Interpreting Early Nasca Decapitated Burials. Latin American
Antiquity 11 (4): 363-386.
Foerster, B.
Nd. Elongated Skulls Of Paracas: A People And Their World. GrahamHancock.
http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/FoersterB6.php, accessed November 28, 2014.
Gordon, H.
1959. Craniostenosis. The British Medical Journal 2 (5155): 792-795.
Hidden Inca Tours
2014. Hidden Inca Tours. http://hiddenincatours.com/our-team/, accessed November 28,
2014.
Hoshower, L.M,, Buikstra, J. E., Goldstein, P. S., and Webster, A. D.
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Peters, A. H.
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Ruble, K.
2014 Paracas Elongated Skulls New DNA Tests Reveal Shocking Information.
Guardian Liberty Voice. April 16. http://guardianlv.com/2014/04/paracas-elongatedskulls-new-dna-info-reveal-shocking-information/, accessed November 14, 2014.
Silverman, H.
1994 Paracas in Nazca: New Data on the Early Horizon Occupation of the Rio Grande
de Nazca Drainage, Peru. Latin American Antiquity 5 (4): 359-382.
Silverman, H.
1997 The First Field Season of Excavations at the Alto del Molino Site, Pisco Valley,
Peru. Journal of Field Archaeology 24 (4): 441-457.
Strong, W. D.
1957 Paracas, Nazca and Tiahuanacoid Cultural Relationships in South Coastal Peru.
Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology 13: 1-48
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Williams, S. R., Forgey, K., and Klarich, E.
2001 An Osteological Study of Nasca Trophy Heads Collected by A. L. Kroeber During
the Marshall field Expeditions to Peru. Fieldiana. Anthropology 33: i-iii, v-vi, 1-132.