"Skull Cults" amongst Hunter-Gatherers?

While some aspects of ‘skull cults’ appear to be similar in hunter–gatherers and small-scale horticultural and agricultural communities, the details of how they function in skull rituals and are integrated with other elements of human behavior vary. Small-scale farmers have long been known to exhibit an interest in the human head. Manifested as either trophy taking or ancestor worship, or both, the range of practices involving the human head have typically been understood in a context of maintaining or enhancing fertility, whether of crops, animals, or human populations themselves. Although the evidence is sparse, many of the same practices are found amongst hunter-gatherers, for whom such interests might appear less immediately relevant. Balance with the natural world is more often maintained by appropriate behaviour towards prey animals, and most anthropological discussions have been more concerned with how hunter-gatherers limit their reproductive potential, rather than seek to enhance it. Why, then, do we see a widespread interest in acts involving the human head amongst hunter-gatherers, ranging from trophy taking to various kinds of post-mortem manipulation? The papers in this session seek to document the range of these practices both archaeologically and ethnographically, and to discuss the possible underlying rationales.