Joe Rogan Experience #2563 - Dan Richards · Aired Oct 8, 2026
Claim summary · not a verbatim quotation
The majority of the elongated skulls in recorded history are from Washington State and Oregon.
The finding
What the evidence shows
The Pacific Northwest is a well-documented case, since the Chinookan peoples of Washington and Oregon flattened infant skulls and Lewis and Clark saw it in 1805. But I found no source saying most of the world's elongated skulls come from there. Peru has some of the oldest and densest evidence, with reported rates as high as 90 percent on some digs, and the practice is recorded on nearly every continent. A tally of deformed skulls by region showing Washington and Oregon in the lead would flip this verdict.
Read the supporting source · www.mentalfloss.com ↗Quick answer & review status
Quick answer
Is it true that the majority of the elongated skulls in recorded history are from Washington State and Oregon?
Partly. The claim stretches what the evidence shows. The Pacific Northwest is a well-documented case, since the Chinookan peoples of Washington and Oregon flattened infant skulls and Lewis and Clark saw it in 1805. But I found no source saying most of the world's elongated skulls come from there. Dan Richards said it (matched by voice) on Joe Rogan Experience #2563 - Dan Richards, aired Oct 8, 2026, at 0:34. The supporting source is mentalfloss.com, linked below.
The context belongs here.
No separately verified on-air correction is recorded for this check. That is not a claim that nobody corrected it.
- Attribution
- Not independently confirmed in this record
- Editorial context review
- Not recorded; generated finding
- Coverage
- One selected claim from the episode
Revisions to this check
No dated revision is recorded here. Older checks may predate this log.
Challenge this finding or add context →Keep the evidence coming.
Follow new checks in your RSS reader, or catch up with the weekly briefing on the site.
Email signup is currently unavailable.
Prefer to catch up here? Read the weekly briefing.