The Viking Women With Intentionally Reshaped Skulls

Scientists posit how and why the ladies achieved the cone-head look.
BY MEG ST-ESPRIT
APRIL 15, 2024

FILING TEETH IS NOT EXACTLY unheard of in ancient societies. The Vikings were known to carve grooves into their incisors for status or intimidation, similar to the Maya of Central America and Zappo Zap people in Congo, among others. But while examining Viking skulls from the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, a team of researchers also found another deliberate body modification, one that’s much more extraordinary.

Three skulls had been subjected to cranial modification to achieve an oblong shape. The skulls belonged to adult women who lived approximately 1,000 years ago. Led by Matthias Toplak of the Viking Museum Haithabu and Lukas Kerk of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, the team published their recent discovery in the Current Swedish Archaeology. Toplak says the finding sheds new light on how Viking groups interacted with other civilizations.

Cranial modification has been seen in various parts of the world, and is still practiced in some isolated cultures today. But artificial cranial deformation had never been previously linked to Viking culture before this discovery. Toplak and his team hypothesize that the practice was likely picked up during trade travels.

“We do not know where these three women grew up and where their heads were deformed,” he explains in an email—but they were Viking women. DNA analysis reveals that they were originally from the Baltic Sea area. “Whether their heads were deformed in their early childhood in the region around the Black Sea, for example, and how they came back to Gotland is unclear,” Toplak writes. The Black Sea region practiced cranial malformation regularly.

More:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/viking-elongated-skulls