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P.F. Bellamy decribes two elongated skulls of infants, which were discovered and brought to England by a "Captain Blankley" and handed over to the Museum of the Devon and Cornwall Natural History Society in 1838.

P F Bellamy

These skulls belonged to two infants, female and male, one of which was not more than a few months old, and the other could not be much more than one year.
It will be manifest from the general contour of these skulls that they are allied to those in the Museum of the College of Surgeons in London, denominated Titicacans. Those adult skulls are very generally considered to be distorted by the effects of pressure; but in opposition to this opinion Dr. Graves has stated, that “a careful examination of them has convinced him that their peculiar shape cannot be owing to artificial pressure;” and to corroborate this view, we may remark that the peculiarities are as great in the child as in the adult, and indeed more in the younger than in the elder of the two specimens now produced: and the position is considerably strengthened by the great relative length of the large bones of the cranium; by the direction of the plane of the occipital bone, which is not forced upwards, but occupies a place in the under part of the skull; by the further absence of marks of pressure, there being no elevation of the vertex nor projection of either side; and by the fact of there being no instrument nor mechanical contrivance suited to produce such an alteration of form (as these skulls present) found in connexion with them.

Wikipedia

One modern theory is that cranial deformation was performed to revere an ancient ancestor that had this skull shape naturally.  Such motivations may have played a key role in Maya society, aimed at creating a skull shape that is associated with  the desirable attributes they saw in their ancestors. For example, in the Nahai-speaking area of Tomman Island and the south south-western Malakulan (Australasia), a person with an elongated head is thought to be more intelligent, of higher status, and closer to the world of the spirits.

The practice of cranial deformation thus probably originates from an attempt to emulate those groups of the population in which elongated head shape was a natural condition.  For example, Rivero and Tschudi describe a mummy containing a foetus with an elongated skull, describing it thus:

 

...the same formation [i.e. absence of the signs of artificial pressure] of the head presents itself in children yet unborn; and of this truth we have had convincing proof in the sight of a foetus, enclosed in the womb of a mummy of a pregnant woman, which we found in a cave of Huichay, two leagues from Tarma, and which is, at this moment, in our collection. Professor D’Outrepont, of great Celebrity in the department of obstetrics, has assured us that the foetus is one of seven months’ age. It belongs, according to a very clearly defined formation of the cranium, to the tribe of the Huancas. We present the reader with a drawing of this conclusive and interesting proof in opposition to the advocates of mechanical action as the sole and exclusive cause of the phrenological form of the Peruvian race.

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The elongated skull types were never native to Europe, Asia, or Africa though their remnants have been found there in areas associated with transoceanic trade and travel. It seems they were most active 15,000-6,000 B.C. if not earlier, which would include the time period before the pole shift at the end of the last ice age. By the first millennium B.C. their numbers had significantly dwindled.

Notice how it’s the top back of the skull that is elongated. That parietal region of the brain happens to deal with mathematical relations and geometry. So they were extremely smart, in a savant-like manner, and would have been adept at astronomical and geomancy practices. Megalithic stonework occurred in several distinct ages, so they were likely responsible for the earliest earthworks and megalithic technologies and were one of the more advanced races during prehistoric times.

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Lithographs of skulls by J. Basire

Pentland wrote in 1834 regarding adult skulls that he excavated near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia in 1827:

Pentland

A careful examination of these skulls has convinced me that their peculiar shape cannot be owing to artificial pressure. The great elongation of the face and the direction of the plane of the occipital bone are not to be reconciled with this opinion, and therefore we must conclude that the peculiarity of shape depends on a natural conformation. If this view of the subject be correct, it follows that these skulls belonged to a race of mankind now extinct, and which differed from any now existing…