{"id":3923805,"date":"2026-02-03T19:01:55","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T00:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/infants-found-buried-in-ecuador-were-wearing-helmets-made-from-other-childrens-skulls\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T19:01:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T00:01:55","slug":"infants-found-buried-in-ecuador-were-wearing-helmets-made-from-other-childrens-skulls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/infants-found-buried-in-ecuador-were-wearing-helmets-made-from-other-childrens-skulls\/","title":{"rendered":"Infants found buried in Ecuador were wearing \u2018helmets\u2019 made from other children\u2019s skulls"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

YouTube Video Here: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/maaX8VvOOtQ?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1<\/a><\/p>\n

Salango is located on the coast of central Ecuador, and archaeologists recently made an astonishing find there: Two infants who had been buried approximately 2,100 years ago wearing \u201chelmets\u201d made from the skulls of other children.<\/p>\n

According to Live Science<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe archaeologists who excavated the burials between 2014 and 2016 recently published<\/u><\/a>\u00a0the details of their findings in the journal Latin American Antiquity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team says this is the only known case in which children\u2019s skulls were used as helmets for infants being buried. The scientists don\u2019t know what killed the infants and children.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"
One of the infant skulls found with a \u201chelmet\u201d made of another child\u2019s skull (Via Sara Jeungst\/UNC Charlotte<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What exactly is the meaning of this bizarre discovery? Why would children be buried wearing the skulls of other children? And what killed these children in the first place?<\/p>\n

The questions were almost endless, but now we\u2019re finally starting to get some answers to help explain what was found in Ecuador.<\/p>\n

The Ecuadorian dead<\/h5>\n

Though there\u2019s certainly nothing unusual about unearthing skulls when excavating a burial site, in South America those skulls are usually the remains of adults who died in battle. Children are not usually the victims, Ancient Origins<\/em> notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe discovery of children is much less common, which makes these two children extra special.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Salango\"
Salango is on the coast of Ecuador and has a history that dates back some 5000 years (Via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The helmeted children<\/h5>\n

A closer look at the children\u2019s skulls provided more information<\/a> about the \u201chelmeted\u201d children.<\/p>\n

One of the infants died at 18 months old. The second was 6 to 9 months old at death, and both had the skull helmets:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201c(The older child) was discovered wearing the modified cranium of a 4-12 year old juvenile in a \u2018helmet-like\u2019 fashion around its own head. The second infant<\/a> \u2026 was found with a skull<\/a> helmet made from another infant who had died between 2-12 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But what does it mean that the children had these skull helmets attached to them?<\/p>\n

\"unbGJj8Xty9sKYGsY45QrH
Discovery of the \u201chelmeted\u201d infants has led to endless questions. (Via Sarah Jeungst\/UNC Charlotte<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Protecting \u2018wild souls\u2019<\/h5>\n

Sara Juengst of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, along with others on the team that found the skulls in Ecuador, came up with a fascinating theory<\/a> regarding the skull helmets:<\/p>\n

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\u201cJuengst and colleagues suggest these unusual symbolic burials\u00a0<\/a>at Salango might have been an attempt to ensure the protection of what the researchers called \u2018pre-social and wild\u2019 souls. And the act of burying their children with carved stone ancestor figurines<\/a> may have been a way of \u2018further empowering\u201d their heads, providing protection for the prematurely deceased children.’\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Guangala\"
Guangala ancestor figurine used in Ecuadorian burial rituals (Via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Related: The face of a man found in a \u2018six-headed burial\u2019 in Scotland is revealed<\/a><\/p>\n

Gruesome preparation<\/h5>\n

And then there\u2019s the matter of how the skull helmets were attached to the deceased infants, and it\u2019s certainly not for the fainthearted, Live Science<\/em> notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe helmets were placed tightly over the infants\u2019 heads, the archaeologists found. It\u2019s likely that the older children\u2019s skulls still had flesh on them when they were turned into helmets, because without flesh, the helmets likely would not have held together, the archaeologists noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne infant\u2019s \u2018face looked through and out of the cranial vault\u2019 \u2014 the space in the skull that holds the brain \u2014 the archaeologists wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"KbM7MRvxUrmpTwnTSxp8nH
Lesions were found on the remains of both of the infants (a and d), suggesting the baby suffered some kind of bodily stress, perhaps from malnutrition. One of the skull helmets can be seen in photos b and c (Via Sarah Jeungst\/UNC Charlotte<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Related: Two-Headed Mummy of Ancient Egyptian Princess And a Crocodile Revealed For The First Time In Public<\/a><\/p>\n

Cause of death<\/h5>\n

The question that remains is what exactly killed these young children.<\/p>\n

Prior studies in the area have been able to determine that a volcanic eruption covered the area in ash shortly before the children were buried. And that has led some to suggest<\/a> that may have had a dramatic impact on the entire region around Solango:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201c\u2018This eruption may have affected food production, and the newly discovered bones suggest the infants and children suffered from malnutrition,\u2019 the researchers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible that \u2018the treatment of the two infants was part of a larger, complex ritual response to environmental consequences of the eruption,\u2019 the archaeologists wrote, noting that \u2018more evidence is needed to confirm this.’\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Babies in ancient Ecuador were buried with human skull helmets https:\/\/t.co\/ibknK2v4Zf<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/Df6zY1R7YO<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Forbes (@Forbes) November 14, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Darker forces?<\/h5>\n

However, given the history of ancient South America, a darker explanation for the skull helmets may also be plausible.<\/p>\n

Just two years ago, a burial site in Peru<\/a> was unearthed that contained the remains<\/a> of 140 children who had been ritually sacrificed in some sort of bizarre appeasement of deities the Peruvians worshiped:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cPreliminary DNA analysis\u00a0<\/a>indicates that both boys and girls were victims and isotopic analysis indicates that they were not all drawn from local populations but from different regions of the Chim\u00fa Empire.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"shocking\"
The Peruvian burial site where hundreds of children\u2019s bodies were unearthed (Via PLOS.org<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
More research needed<\/h5>\n

As with the bodies found the Peruvian mass grave, a great deal more research<\/a> is needed to fully explain the meaning of the helmeted skulls in Ecuador:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cJuengst noted that other tests, such as those using DNA and strontium isotopes<\/a> (variations of an element with different numbers of neutrons), may help to identify the owner of the bones.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But all of the research in the world may never completely explain exactly what thought process went into placing skulls atop the heads of deceased children prior to burial. As with many things from the ancient world, some secrets are never revealed.<\/p>\n

Related: Do descendants of the mysterious Green Children of Woolpit exist today?<\/a><\/p>\n

For more on the subject of cranial modification in ancient times, watch this video<\/em><\/p>\n

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Featured Image via Wikipedia and Sara Jeungst\/UNC Charlotte<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Go to Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

YouTube Video Here: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/maaX8VvOOtQ?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1<\/p>\n

Salango is located on the coast of central Ecuador, and archaeologists recently made an astonishing find there: Two infants who had been buried approximately 2,100 years ago wearing \u201chelmets\u201d made from the skulls of other children.<\/p>\n

According to Live Science:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe archaeologists who excavated the burials between 2014 and 2016 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3923805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ancient-code","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3923805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3923805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3923805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3923805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}