Shifts in Artificial Head Forms, Population Movements, and Ethnicity Among the Postclassic Maya

Abstract

The culturally induced modification of head form in infants was a widespread practice among the Prehispanic Maya, who employed a host of different compression devices, which left the heads of the children narrow or wide, elevated or reclined. This paper explores the potential ethnic and populational connotations of different head morphologies in the shifting cultural landscape during the centuries before the Spanish conquest. I specifically discuss those visible head morphologies that were either abandoned or adopted during the centuries surrounding the so-called Maya collapse and discuss some of the underlying sociocultural and populational dynamics.