Modified human crania provide evidence for a new form of Neolithic skull cult

Not really. They just drilled holes (presumably after death) to hang them, like Christmas ornaments. Or maybe they were percussion instruments.

This is HN, link to the actual paper http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1700564.full and to the researchers own site https://tepetelegrams.wordpress.com/ There is ZERO reason to link to some site regurgitating a press release, even if it is the Guardian.

These are posthumously modified ornamental skulls, carved and painted after death maybe for funerary purposes, not skulls re-shaped during infancy, for weirdo flattened head shapes among the living.