Neat post, but I think you're downplaying the likelihood of independent discovery.
It's actually quite easy to deform the head short term with headwear. For a modern example look up gamer dent / headphone dent.
The path could be just just "upper class wears elaborate headwear" -> "upper class notices head shape changes" -> "upper class starts doing it on purpose". I can imagine that happening in multiple places independently.
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Neat post, but I think you're downplaying the likelihood of independent discovery.
It's actually quite easy to deform the head short term with headwear. For a modern example look up gamer dent / headphone dent.
The path could be just just "upper class wears elaborate headwear" -> "upper class notices head shape changes" -> "upper class starts doing it on purpose". I can imagine that happening in multiple places independently.
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