Skulls on minimap?
 

Turning off the skulls on the minimap:

I once read a post awhile back on how to disable these things but can't seem to find it again.

They drive me crazy ..any help turning them off would be much appreciated

I'll bet it's either in the options page under map/minimap or the right click on the map menu under the show heading.....something to the extent of saying "show kill icons" is what you are looking for.

Yes, it's as Vis says.

Richt click your map, select Show... and uncheck Show Kill Icons.

What the skulls represent is all the places you've died and, possibly, all the places you've killed another player. I don't do PvP, so I wouldn't know.

Skulls are off by default.