Zoser, you can show Foerster this too; it's from the same
specialist of my former post:
The method of artificial skull deformation used in Peru and Bolivia caused the sutures of the skull to remain open from the inside to the outside into adulthood when they should have at least started to close on the inside. To me this suggests an increase in intracranial pressure. Increased intracranial pressure in children is often due to hydrocephalus and that is how I got started looking into hydrocephalus and neurodegenerative diseases.
At first, when looking at the skulls like the one above, I thought the physicians or shamen of the day had unintentionally caused hydrocephalus due to the skull deformation similar to the consequences of extreme craniosynostosis.
Then it occured to me perhaps they were trying to treat hydrocephalus. Why else would people go to such extremes?
Similar to skull deformation, hydrocephalus is as old as humans are. It's my opinion that humans are predisposed to hydrocephalus and skull deformation due to upright posture and the unique design of the skull, spine and circulatory system of the brain. The key sign in hydrocephalus is a rapidly developing oversized head. People, community healers and especially mother's most likely knew the signs of hydrocephalus long before recorded history. The signs are easy to see.
Closer inbreeding in tight knit mountain and valley communities of Peru and Bolivia could have passed on a genetic skull design flaw such as an undersized cranial vault relative to the size of the brain. As mentioned above, craniosynostosis can cause an increase in intracranial pressure but so can a condition called craniodysostosis such as an undersized base of the skull, especially the posterior fossa.
Rather than hydrocephalus perhaps they were attempting correction of craniosynostosis. But this seems hardly likely since the outcome was far worse if the object was correction and restoration of normal shape and symmetry.
On the other hand, if they were attempting correction of hydrocephalus, they were far more successfull at it than their western contemporary physician counterparts before the advent of shunts. The reason why is because judging by their molar teeth they obviously lived to be adults. In western cultures, before shunts, children were often severely mentally impaired and died young as a result of hydrocephalus.
That would make the physicians or shaman of the former indiginous people of Peru and Bolivia smarter than we give them credit for doing what they did. Fortunately today, due to shunts, children can, in many cases, live normal lives.
Unfortunately, we can only guess why the former indigenous people of Peru and Bolivia performed intentional skull deformation on so many of their infants.
Suffice it to say however, the extreme skull deformation altered the flow of blood and CSF which may have compensated for the hydrocephalus or it opened new pathways.
http://www.upright-h...eformation.html