Cone-Headed Skull of 6,200-Year-Old Girl Unearthed in Iran, Scientists Don't Know Why

About 6,200 years ago, in a village on the northern rim of the Persian Gulf, a young woman died after being struck on the head. She was probably younger than 20. Her skull, recently discovered at the prehistoric graveyard of Chega Sofla in western Iran, speaks two tales — one of cultural shaping, and one of traumatic violence.

Her cranium was elongated, reshaped through years of tight bandaging during childhood, a form of body modification practiced by ancient societies across Eurasia and beyond. But it was also cracked — split by a forceful strike with a wide, blunt object.

Whether the blow was delivered in conflict or by accident, we’ll never know. What remains is the scar in the bone — and a snapshot of how early societies shaped both bodies and lives. The finds and more have been published in the latest edition of The International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.

"We know this woman experienced the fracture in the final moments of her life, but we don't have any direct evidence to say that someone intentionally struck her," study lead author Mahdi Alirezazadeh, a prehistoric archaeologist at Tarbiat Modares University in Iran, explained to Live Science over email.

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Bound Heads and Brick Tombs: A Chronicling

The find is part of the Zohreh Prehistoric Project, a continuing excavation project that has spent more than a decade stripping away the Copper Age's layers in the Zagros foothills. Chega Sofla is not a typical burial ground — it contains the oldest-known brick tombs, collective family graves, and evidence of an evolving urban culture: temples, organized housing, early attempts at writing.

This skull of a young Copper Age woman, BG1.12, has evidence of a traumatic injury sustained around the time of death. (Mahdi Alirezazadeh/International Journal of Osteoarchaeology (2025). DOI: 10.1002/oa.3415.)

Among over a dozen altered skulls, one stood out. Labeled BG1.12, it was the remains of a young woman whose head had been reshaped into a cone-like shape carefully, purposefully. Cranial modification like this wasn't for aesthetic purposes — it was cultural, perhaps an indicator of status, beauty, or belonging to a clan.

And she was not alone: the cemetery holds both unmodified and modified skulls, which implies that skull shaping could have been practiced among only a segment of the population.

What the CT Scans Reveal: Blunt Force Trauma

Scientists Mahdi Alirezazadeh and Hamed Vahdati Nasab of Tarbiat Modares University scanned the skull via CT scans to see how the alteration affected her. The findings were undeniable: her cranial bones, including the diploë, the soft, spongy inner layer, were abnormally thin and decreased the skull's shock-absorbing ability.

But most notable was the fracture — a wedge-shaped break running from the forehead all the way to the side of the head. It was neat. No scarring, no healing. She didn't survive the blow. By shape and impact area, the researchers think it was from a blunt-edged object, not a sharpened or pointed one.

"Whereas we can be sure that this woman suffered the fracture in the last seconds of her life," Alirezazadeh said. "But we have no direct evidence to state that someone purposefully hit her."

Was it an accident? A fall? A ritualistic act? A killing? The quiet of the grave won't tell. What it does make clear is the fragility of existence in an era of burgeoning complexity, reveals  Popular Mechanics.

Aerial view of the Persian Gulf from space. (NASA/Public domain)

A Culture on the Edge of Change

BG1.12 was interred in a communal grave — an area full of other skeletons, some formed like hers, some not. That environment makes it almost impossible to identify the remaining bones of her, or ascertain her specific role in the society that entombed her.

Nevertheless, her death provides a glimpse into a civilization at the threshold of change. This was an "eventful millennium," as Alirezazadeh describes it — a period in which systems of belief took architectural shape, in which villages became cities, and in which body, self, and line of descent were inscribed not on paper, but on bone.

The fracture does not only signal her demise. It signals a line between culture and consequence — between the construction of the self and the gamble that accompanied it.

Between Art and Accident

Artificial cranial modification is known from cultures as diverse as the Maya, the Huns, and the Avars. It’s often romanticized as an ancient aesthetic. But the Chega Sofla find pushes that conversation further. It forces archaeologists to ask: what was the cost of belonging? What happens when cultural practice makes the body vulnerable?

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Alirezazadeh is precise enough not to make sweeping statements. Another skull at the site indicates trauma but was not modified. "So we cannot attribute cranial fractures solely to modified skulls," he says. The elongated shape may have compromised the bone, but the severity of the blow — or mishap — would have broken any skull, shaped or otherwise.

1750 Schley Map of Ormus, Persian Gulf. (Public domain)

Nevertheless, there is a human gravity to the statistics. This was not merely an exercise. It was a living molded by fingers and clothed in meaning. And then it came to an end — suddenly, brutally — in a cemetery where ideals long past were met with very-present danger.

Top image: The burial of the aforementioned skull of the girl, BG 1.12.                                 Source: Archive of Zohreh Prehistoric Project. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology (2025). DOI: 10.1002/oa.3415.

By Sahir