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Playlist: The Top 25 Videos of 2017
From: Secrets
»Shrunken Heads
DNA Analysis Reveals Troubling News About Shrunken Heads
In mid-19th century South America, a lucrative trade in shrunken human heads leads to a rash of fake heads being passed off as real. One museum sets about to find out if their own Shuar shrunken head is a fake.
More About This episode
In the 1840s, Western explorers entered the Amazon rainforest and stumbled upon the ancient ritual of head shrinking. This isolated ceremonial practice soon became an obsession to trophy collectors, setting off a bizarre international trade, and a deadly new chapter in the history of the Shuar tribe. Follow a team of anthropologists, historians, and scientists as they use DNA, forensic science, and computer modeling to examine the ancient craft of head shrinking and the story of a society of victims, who were also perpetrators.
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