Two infants were buried some 2,100 years ago wearing “helmets” made from the skulls of other children, archaeologists have discovered.

The remains of the two infants were found with nine other burials at a site called Salango, on the coast of central Ecuador. The archaeologists who excavated the burials between 2014 and 2016 recently published the details of their findings in the journal Latin American Antiquity.

The team says this is the only known case in which children’s skulls were used as helmets for infants being buried. The scientists don’t know what killed the infants and children.

The helmets were placed tightly over the infants’ heads, the archaeologists found. It’s likely that the older children’s 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.

One infant’s “face looked through and out of the cranial vault” — the space in the skull that holds the brain — the archaeologists wrote. Read more.

In anticipation of being able to clean a dolphin skull I’ve been thinking a lot about how completely FUCKY dolphins and other cetaceans are anatomy wise… Like they are some of the strangest, most alien mammals out there. Specifically their skulls and heads. 

So this is your typical dolphin, a smooth round head with a cute smiling beak. You would think their skulls would be shaped like their heads, that’s usually how skulls work. Something like this….

But In reality their skulls actually look like THIS flat alligator thing…

I’m sure you are thinking… “Where is the forehead”??? What if I told you that entire big lumpy forehead isn’t actually its “forehead” but rather something called a “melon” which is actually part of the NOSE or nasal apparatus.

Its essentially just a big gross fluid/jelly blob masquerading as a decent forehead. The melon has evolved as a way of amplifying and detecting vocalizations used in echolocation.

Other terrifying facts:

• They have no ear holes, most sound is picked up by a combination of the melon and vibrations through the jaw bone. 
• They can’t breathe through their mouths. There is something called a  laryngeal plug completely separates the respiratory and digestive tracts. Cetaceans have been known to drown if their blowhole is obstructed.
• Their breathing is not automatic. They must constantly think and chose when to take breaths. 
• Sperm whales (Also cetaceans) are the loudest animals on earth. If you were to swim right next to their giant heads as they released a sonar pulse the shockwave could cause internal bleeding and nerve damage. Partially thanks to their giant “melon” amplifying and directing the pulse. 

Speaking of weird dolphin skulls, South Asian river dolphins and some of their extinct relatives have especially weird skulls, which look more like what you’d expect a dolphin skull to look like than they do other dolphin skulls:

Unlike other dolphins, they have thin, bony crests that wrap around the melon. These crests may aid in echolocation, as the Ganges and Indus rivers are much darker and murkier than the habitats of their ocean-dwelling cousins—as a result, South Asian river dolphins are nearly blind and rely on echolocation to navigate.

Thanks for the addition! Evolutionary patterns of skull formations are pretty dang interesting!