Paracas Elongated Skulls - were they human?
Left: A Paracas skull from the Paracas Museum. Right: An elongated skull from the Ica Museum.Hidden Inca Tours and Marcin Tlustochowicz, Wikimedia Commons




"I am not sure it will even fit into the known evolutionary tree," the geneticist added.

Geneticist won't come forward, for now



It has always been thought that the skulls are elongated as a result of cranial deformation, whereby the head has been bound or flattened in order to achieve the unusual shape, however Foerster does not think this is the case with the Paracas skulls.

"From the doctors that I have spoken to, they have said that you can alter the shape of the skull but you cannot increase the size of the skull. The skull is genetically predetermined to have a certain volume," he said.

The Paracans might have migrated

An artist's impresson of what the ancient Paracan people looked like
An artist's impression of what the ancient Paracan people might have looked likeMarcia K Moore, Ciamar Studio

The reddish-brown colour of the ancient Paracas people and their unusual height is also not typical to the region, so Foerster, who has co-authored a book entitled, "The Enigma of Cranial Deformation: Elongated Skulls of the Ancients", thinks it is possible that these people migrated from another part of the world, possibly Georgia, where other 2,000 year-old elongated skulls have been found.

There are still many more tests that need to be carried out to verify what the DNA is, but genetic studies cost a lot of money.

With the help of interested individuals over the last two years, Foerster has so far raised $7,000 (£4,260, €5,120) to do the initial DNA testing, but a full genome study to completely verify the theory would cost at least $100,000, so he is hoping that geneticists will be willing to volunteer their services and equipment "for the good of humanity".

"I have had many different ideas but I've been waiting for actual DNA analysis and that has taken an incredibly long time, mainly due to lack of funding and also finding a geneticist who is open to studying this, doing it at a fraction of the normal cost that it would cost commercially," he explained.

"My intent simply is to find the truth as to who these people were."