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Here is a rather cute reconstruction of the Taung Child, an infant Australopithecus africanus.
The well known forensic artist Cicero Moraes was involved in the reconstruction.
The age of the fossil is about 2,8 million years.
quote: The Taung Child (or Taung Baby) is the fossilised skull of a young Australopithecus africanus. It was discovered in 1924 by quarrymen working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa. Raymond Dart described it as a new species in the journal Nature in 1925.
The Taung skull is in repository at the University of Witwatersrand. Dean Falk, a specialist in brain evolution, has called it "the most important anthropological fossil of the twentieth century."
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Another facial reconstruction of a person from the Moche culture in Peru. This time it is the "Lord of Sipan" who was a ruler in the third century AD
quote: forensic anthropologists have reconstructed the face of the Lord of Sipan, a Mochica ruler whose third-century grave was discovered in Lambayeque in 1987 by archaeologist Walter Alva. Researchers from Inca Garcilaso de la Vega University, and Cícero Moraes and Paulo Miamoto of the Brazilian NGO Team of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology, used computer software to reassemble the Lord of Sipan’s skull, which had been severely damaged by the weight of his burial.
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Reconstruction of a 4000 years old woman from the province of Medelpad in Northern Sweden. The reconstruction is made by Oscar Nilsson, famous for his many facial reconstructions of prehistoric and historic people.
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Two facial reconstructions of the original Cromagnon skull. The one to the left is made by Oscar Nilsson and the one to the right by the people of Ancestral whispers.
And as a comparison the original Cromagnon 1 skull
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The "Ivory Bangle Lady" was a woman with North African ancestry who lived and died in York more than 1,600 years ago.
quote: The grave of this young woman, aged between 18 and 23 years when she died, was discovered in 1901 at Sycamore Terrace in York, just a few hundred meters from the Yorkshire Museum where she now lies. This area was once part of a sprawling cemetery on the fringes of Eboracum, Roman York.
She lay within a stone coffin, adorned with beautiful jewellery and accompanied by a range of objects. Most of Eboracum’s residents were modestly buried, without elaborate coffins or grave goods. In stark contrast, Ivory Bangle Lady’s burial stands out as a burial of a wealthy woman of high social status.
The style of the objects buried with her reveal that she died in the later fourth century AD, within the last decades of Roman occupation in Britain. A closer look at these allows us to appreciate the international trade networks within which Eboracum sat and the cosmopolitan nature of its inhabitants. Beautifully crafted fashionable goods, some made with exotic materials from distant provinces of the Roman Empire, were available to purchase at Eboracum’s markets, by those who could afford them... and Ivory Bangle Lady certainly could.
Her wrists were decorated with dramatically contrasting bangles of black jet and white ivory, from which her nickname derives. Whilst jet is a local product, sourced from Whitby less than 50 miles away on the Yorkshire coast, ivory was a much more exotic and rare import from Africa.
She also wore an elaborate necklace of blue glass beads and a pair of yellow glass earrings. A small blue glass bottle, possibly once filled with perfumed oil, is another import, this time from the Rhineland, and a convex glass disc may have been used as a mirror.
Although fragmentary, a small bone plaque that once decorated a box or casket is perhaps the most significant item from her burial. It was carefully carved to create words reading SOROR AVE VIVAS IN DEO which can be translated as “Hail sister! May you live in God”. This hints at Ivory Bangle Lady’s association with a relatively new and exotic religion, Christianity.
quote: By taking detailed and precise measurements of her skull, osteoarchaeologists were able to tell that Ivory Bangle Lady had mixed racial heritage and ancestral links to North Africa.
Archaeological scientists also revealed secrets about her early life by analysing chemical elements within her teeth. Our teeth are time capsules of our past; as they grow they incorporate chemicals from the food and drink we consume into their structure. These chemicals vary depending on the climate and geology of the local area and so show in what kind of place someone grew up.
Ivory Bangle Lady’s results are fascinating. They show that she didn’t grow up in York but migrated here later in her life. They also suggest that she spent her childhood somewhere with a warmer climate, on the coast. Whilst this may have been in southern England, given her heritage it was more likely somewhere on the Mediterranean coast, perhaps even North Africa itself.
I wonder how they came to that conclusion, when ...:
This northward migration of northeastern African populations carrying sub-Saharan biological elements is concordant with the morphological homogeneity of the Natufian populations (Bocquentin 2003), which present morphological affinity with sub-Saharan populations (Angel 1972; Brace et al. 2005).
“Ofer Bar-Yosef cites the microburin technique and “microlithic forms such as arched backed bladelets and La Mouillah points" as well as the parthenocarpic figs found in Natufian territory originated in the Sudan.” (Bar-Yosef O., Pleistocene connections between Africa and South West Asia: an archaeological perspective. The African Archaeological Review; Chapter 5, pg 29-38; Kislev ME, Hartmann A, Bar-Yosef O, Early domesticated fig in the Jordan Valley. Nature 312:1372–1374.)
Posts: 22249 | From: Omni | Registered: Nov 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Antalas: Egyptian from Thebes, 18th dynasty :
What is the source of this?
quote:The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XVIII, alternatively 18th Dynasty or Dynasty 18) is classified as the first dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egypt, the era in which ancient Egypt achieved the peak of its power. The Eighteenth Dynasty spanned the period from 1550/1549 to 1292 BC. This dynasty is also known as the Thutmosid Dynasty for the four pharaohs named Thutmose.
quote:"The earliest certain link with Egypt is 664 B.C., the date of the Assyrian sack of the Egyptian capital at Thebes. Although it is often possible to locate earlier events quite precisely relative to each other, neither surviving contemporary documents nor scientific dating methods such as carbon 14, dendrochronology, thermoluminescence, and archaeoastronomy are able to provide the required accuracy to fix these events absolutely in time."
quote: We have long known, through shared artifact traits, of ties across the desert from the Nile Valley to the west and southwest during the relatively humid early to mid-Holocene. What remains unclear is the exact timing for such links, and the nature of the entities involved in both the Nile Valley and the desert. Now a team from Yale, surveying the desert west of Thebes, has provided a benchmark by demonstrating close ties between Upper Egypt and Kharga Oasis starting in Badarian times. Meanwhile, after 25 years of fieldwork in Dakhleh Oasis, we have a firm sequence for post-Pleistocene developments in this part of the Eastern Sahara, including a wealth of information on subsistence and on the nature of social groups. Our recent work in Kharga Oasis now shows that the two oases were very closely related, indeed a single cultural entity, through much of the early to mid-Holocene. Hence, linking the sequences from the Valley and the oases, we can more precisely correlate such developments as the influx of Khartoum-related pottery from the south, the switch to nomadic pastoralism around the oases, and the early stages of the development of complexity in Egypt.
quote: ”Many of the sites reveal evidence of important interactions between Nilotic and Saharan groups during the formative phases of the Egyptian Predynastic Period (e.g. Wadi el-Hôl, Rayayna, Nuq’ Menih, Kurkur Oasis). Other sites preserve important information regarding the use of the desert routes during the Protodynastic and Pharaonic Periods,particularly during periods of political and military turmoil in the Nile Valley (e.g. Gebel Tjauti, Wadi el-Hôl)."
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A rather famous reconstruction of a skull found in Jericho
quote: Forensic experts have reconstructed the face of a man who lived around 9,500 years ago in Jericho, near the Jordan River in the West Bank. The reconstruction was based on a micro-CT scan of his skull, which had been covered in plaster and has clamshells for eyes. Alexandra Fletcher of the British Museum, where the skull is housed, believes it and others like it were created as part of an ancestor cult.
The scan reveals that the skull belonged to a man who died after the age of 40 and had a broken nose that healed during his lifetime. In addition, his skull had been tightly bound from early infancy, changing its shape. “This person lived a very long time ago,” says Fletcher, “but he could go out shopping in London today, and nobody would turn a hair. He’s a modern human, just like you or me.”
Maybe start in Greece with a man from a tomb at the palace of Nestor on Peloponnesos from Mycenaean time.
quote: The face of Bronze Age fighter revealed: Scientists reconstruct face of the 'Griffin Warrior' who was part of an elite group 3,500 years ago Remains of the 3,500 year old 'Griffin Warrior' were found last year A team has reconstructed his face by layer facial tissue over his skull Face templates of average Greek males were used to create eyes and nose It produced a handsome face with a square jaw and powerful neck
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Now they reconstructed the face of a paleolithic woman from Czech Republic.
quote: In 1881, archaeologists unearthed the skull of a human buried inside a cave in Mladeč, a village in what is now the Czech Republic. At the time, researchers dated the skull to about 31,000 years ago and classified the individual as male.
But they were wrong about the Stone Age person's sex, a new study finds.
Now, more than 140 years later, researchers have corrected that error, revealing that the so-called Mladeč 1 skull belonged to a 17-year-old female who lived during the Aurignacian, part of the Upper Paleolithic period (roughly 43,000 to 26,000 years ago). The team published its findings as part of a new online book called "The Forensic Facial Approach to the Skull Mladeč 1(opens in new tab)" that details how the scientists reclassified the sex of "one of the oldest Homo sapiens found in Europe."
A digital approximation of what the Stone Age woman may have looked like. (Image credit: Cicero Moraes/Jiri Sindelar/Karel Drbal)
Researchers used a projection of lines corresponding to boundaries of soft tissue and bone structures to create the facial approximation. (Image credit: Cicero Moraes/Jiri Sindelar/Karel Drbal)
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Denisovans were our close cousins. We have very few preserved bones of them. But by analyzing their DNA researchers can get a glimpse of what they looked like. Here is an artwork based on that kind of approximation.
quote: Now, in an impressive feat, Gokhman and his colleagues have mapped out a proposed Denisovan skeleton using information for 32 skeletal features encoded in DNA that was extracted from a pinky bone. The research, published today in the journal Cell, doesn’t give exact values for Denisovan proportions, but it does offer a comparative look at how this mysterious kind of hominin measured up against Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.
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What I've come to appreciate about all these reconstructions is that they're a bit like drawing dinosaurs or any other prehistoric creatures. You have to take the underlying skeletal structure into account when rendering the facial features, but many other details about the soft tissue remain guesswork without further research.
Even aDNA data can leave room for interpretation. For example, does Cheddar Man and other WHG having the ancestral allele for certain skin color genes mean they retained the dark skin of African ancestors, or did they have alleles for lighter skin on other genes that escaped detection?
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: by analyzing their DNA researchers can get a glimpse of what they looked like.
Don't fall for the bullshit
It's speculation by a forensic artist to sell news articles
> not information derived from the DNA
At least there was a study regarding the DNA and it´s connection to the phenotype of Denisovans. But the artistic reconstruction itself must of course be rather speculative.
quote: Denisovans are an extinct group of humans whose morphology remains unknown. Here, we present a method for reconstructing skeletal morphology using DNA methylation patterns. Our method is based on linking unidirectional methylation changes to loss-of-function phenotypes. We tested performance by reconstructing Neanderthal and chimpanzee skeletal morphologies and obtained >85% precision in identifying divergent traits. We then applied this method to the Denisovan and offer a putative morphological profile. We suggest that Denisovans likely shared with Neanderthals traits such as an elongated face and a wide pelvis. We also identify Denisovan-derived changes, such as an increased dental arch and lateral cranial expansion. Our predictions match the only morphologically informative Denisovan bone to date, as well as the Xuchang skull, which was suggested by some to be a Denisovan. We conclude that DNA methylation can be used to reconstruct anatomical features, including some that do not survive in the fossil record.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: by analyzing their DNA researchers can get a glimpse of what they looked like.
Don't fall for the bullshit
It's speculation by a forensic artist to sell news articles
> not information derived from the DNA
At least there was a study regarding the DNA and it´s connection to the phenotype of Denisovans. But the artistic reconstruction itself must of course be rather speculative.
quote: Denisovans are an extinct group of humans whose morphology remains unknown. Here, we present a method for reconstructing skeletal morphology using DNA methylation patterns. Our method is based on linking unidirectional methylation changes to loss-of-function phenotypes. We tested performance by reconstructing Neanderthal and chimpanzee skeletal morphologies and obtained >85% precision in identifying divergent traits. We then applied this method to the Denisovan and offer a putative morphological profile. We suggest that Denisovans likely shared with Neanderthals traits such as an elongated face and a wide pelvis. We also identify Denisovan-derived changes, such as an increased dental arch and lateral cranial expansion. Our predictions match the only morphologically informative Denisovan bone to date, as well as the Xuchang skull, which was suggested by some to be a Denisovan. We conclude that DNA methylation can be used to reconstruct anatomical features, including some that do not survive in the fossil record.
This mainly pertains to a claim regarding predicting skeletal traits
quote:While the Denisovan DNA sequence potentially bears ample information on its anatomical features, our current ability to decode these data is very restricted. A direct approach is to examine the biological consequences of substitutions that alter protein sequence. However, less than 100 fixed nonsynonymous substitutions distinguish MHs from the Denisovan and Neanderthal, whereas the remaining ∼30,000 fixed changes are noncoding or synonymous (Prüfer et al., 2014). Although many of the noncoding changes are likely neutral (or nearly so), many others probably alter gene activity and may be highly informative to anatomy. However, pinpointing such variants is notoriously difficult. A possible approach to circumvent this is to predict the combined effect of SNPs that are known to be associated with various traits. Prediction accuracy for traits such as skin, hair, and eye pigmentation exceeds 80% in Europeans (Walsh et al., 2013), but for the vast majority of traits, genome-wide association study (GWAS)-based predictions reach substantially lower accuracy levels (Price et al., 2015), including in facial morphology (Brinkley et al., 2016, Cole et al., 2016, Erlich, 2017, Liu et al., 2012, Shaffer et al., 2016). Moreover, the ability to extrapolate European-based GWASs to non-European populations was shown to be very limited (Martin et al., 2017). Perhaps most importantly, GWASs are based on within-population variability, which usually reflects variants that emerged more recently. However, older variants that separate more deeply diverged lineages and variants with considerable phenotypic effects are more likely to reach fixation and are therefore unlikely to be pinned down in GWASs, even if their effect is substantial (Martin et al., 2017, Price et al., 2015). Together, these factors limit the applicability of GWAS-detected variants in morphological analyses of deeply diverged groups, such as the Denisovan.
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By predicting certain traits of the morphology of the skull compared to modern humans and neanderthals one can get a loose approximation of how the skull may have looked like. In the article they also speculate that the morphology could be in accordance with the Xuchang skull which could possibly be from a Denisovan. That could further help in getting an idea of how the Denisovans looked like.
But the artistic representation must of course still be speculative. If it will be possible to show that any of the Xushang skulls is indeed a Denisovan one could perhaps use that instead as a basis for a less speculative reconstruction.
The method of predicting morphology from DNA is interesting though, but still in it´s infancy. Hopefully in the future the technique will be improved.
quote: Neanderthals (N), and empty circles represent no detectable difference. For example, the Denisovan is expected to have a lower forehead compared to MHs and similar to Neanderthals. Upward-facing arrows in the teeth eruption and loss traits represent an earlier timing. Regions for which there is no reconstruction were illustrated in a more general way. Face height (i.e., the vertical length of the face) and face protrusion (how much the face projects forward) are marked with dashed lines. The figure depicts an adult, as reconstruction was based on DMRs that are age independent.
-------------------- Once an archaeologist, always an archaeologist Posts: 2834 | From: Sweden | Registered: Mar 2020
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quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: What I've come to appreciate about all these reconstructions is that they're a bit like drawing dinosaurs or any other prehistoric creatures. You have to take the underlying skeletal structure into account when rendering the facial features, but many other details about the soft tissue remain guesswork without further research.
Even aDNA data can leave room for interpretation. For example, does Cheddar Man and other WHG having the ancestral allele for certain skin color genes mean they retained the dark skin of African ancestors, or did they have alleles for lighter skin on other genes that escaped detection?
Good questions. Interesting is also how one can, from DNA predict what type of hair ancient humans had, was it nappy, frizzy, curly, wavy or straight. I think we in the future will see better predictions and assessments about several phenotypical traits from DNA.
-------------------- Once an archaeologist, always an archaeologist Posts: 2834 | From: Sweden | Registered: Mar 2020
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quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: [QB] By predicting certain traits of the morphology of the skull compared to modern humans and neanderthals one can get a loose approximation of how the skull may have looked like. In the article they also speculate that the morphology could be in accordance with the Xuchang skull which could possibly be from a Denisovan. That could further help in getting an idea of how the Denisovans looked like.
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It is rather fragmentary but if one could show that it is from a Denisovan one could puzzle it together with the Denisovan Jawbone from Xiahe, Gansu province in China, and add the conclusions from DNA, and then we are closer to an approximation of how a Denisovan looked like.
It is not uncommon that anthropologists and paleontologists can get a fairly good amount of information from rather incomplete remains.
Even in it´s fragmentary state the Xuxhang crania can give some information:
quote:The Xuchang 1 and 2 crania, excavated in situ in the Lingjing site in Xuchang County of Henan Province between 2007 and 2014, reflect eastern Eurasian ancestry in having low, sagittally flat, and inferiorly broad neurocrania. However, they also share occipital (suprainiac and nuchal torus) and temporal labyrinthine (semicircular canal) morphology with the Neandertals.
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Most of these "how they looked" full reconstructions with skin and hair are for the sake of mainstream article readers and public exhibits not fulfilling scientific research aims
Posts: 43093 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Most of these "how they looked" full reconstructions with skin and hair are for the sake of mainstream article readers and public exhibits not fulfilling scientific research aims
Yes most are. But hopefully new methods and knowledge can make such reconstructions more accurate in the future, especially regarding such things as skin color, hair and eye color, hair type and other details, especially from very old specimens where we have no artistic representations, or where we have no modern equivalents.
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Here is another drawing of a Denisovan inspired by the above mentioned study. It is made by paleoartist Tom Björklund
He explains his thoughts about the picture
quote: In the Altai mountains (a young Denisovan woman – work in progress)
I have been asked to make a Denisovan figure several times but there hasn't been much to go after for making any kind of rekonstruktion. My guess would have been, though, that Denisovans were pretty much like Neanderthals, so much so that we couldn't tell the difference between them. Now, a research team have studied gene activity in Denisovans (as well as in Neanderthals and chimpanzees to compare with) to see how it might have affected their skeletal anatomy. The researchers conclude that some of Denisovan traits were like in modern humans and some resambled those of Neanderthals while other characteristics were their own. They also say that Denisovans had wider faces than Neanderthals and modern humans. Speculation? May be so but sofisticated enough for me to make an illustration. Actually I started this quite some time ago but picked it up again when I became aware about the study publised in Cell a couple of days ago. Neanderthals had proportionally long and relatively narrow faces compared with most modern humans. So the broader face of Denisovans would have maid their facial proportions to look more like ours, just bigger. Of course there no doubt was individual variation, too. The shape of the lips, nose, eyes and ears is naturally even harder to know so I prefer to make them neutral, something of a mix of modern populations while waiting for new studies on those traits.
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Reconstruction of a 9600 years old man from Brazil. It is interesting that his facial traits show similarities with other ancient Native Americans and also with Vietnamese and Malay people
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Pretty much everything in this thread is merely fan art
quote:The skull provides clues to personal appearance. The brow ridge, the distance between the eye orbits, the shape of the nasal chamber, the shape and projection of the nasal bones, the chin's form, and the overall profile of the facial bones all determine facial features in life. In facial reconstruction, a sculptor, such as Amy Danning pictured at left, familiar with facial anatomy works with a forensic anthropologist, to interpret skeletal features that reveal the subject's age, sex, and ancestry, and anatomical features like facial asymmetry, evidence of injuries (like a broken nose), or loss of teeth before death. Markers indicate the depths of tissue to be added to the skull (a cast in this case). Studies over the past century of males and females of different ancestral groups determine the measures of these depths. Applying strips of clay, the artist begins to rebuild the face by filing in around the markers. The artist begins to refine features around the artificial eyes. The lips take shape. Facial contours have been smoothed and subtle details added to accurately personalize the reconstruction. The finished product only approximates actual appearance because the cranium does not reflect soft-tissue details (eye, hair, and skin color; facial hair; the shape of the lips; or how much fat tissue covers the bone). Yet a facial reconstruction can put a name on an unidentified body in a modern forensic case — or, in an archaeological investigation, a face on history.
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^^^ Exactly but people love to parade reconstructions as some sort of historical science..
The old and updated Fantasy Art of Nazlet Khater 2 Man by "Ancestral Whispers"s look completely different Posts: 8812 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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It is of course hard to know how successful a reconstruction is if there is no picture of the dead person, or other things which can give additional information, like preserved soft parts, or in some cases DNA.
Another factor which matters is the preservation of the skull, is it complete, or are there missing parts which must be filled in?
Important is also if the reconstruction is modelled from an actual cast of a skull, or only from photos (like Ancestral Whispers images, but also Cicero Moraes reconstruction of the Nazlet Khater 2 man).
One question one ought to ask is if someone who knew the dead person would have recognized him or her? That is of course often impossible to know regarding ancient samples. But in criminal cases people have been able to recognize a person from facial reconstructions.
One can wonder over the future of the technique. Will the importance of DNA in this type of reconstruction increase? Will we be able to better infer the phenotype of a person based on different genes?
Will better computer applications and AI make the job easier?
-------------------- Once an archaeologist, always an archaeologist Posts: 2834 | From: Sweden | Registered: Mar 2020
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Nazlet has a large subnasal area, among other things. Couldn't even get that right.
Jericho Man artists did catch that even though it's much more milder in that case (they overdid it a bit, presumably to make a point [ie to highlight the 'ethnic' or ancient character of aspects of Jericho Man's skull]). But how can you miss that? Posts: 8807 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Nazlet has a large subnasal area, among other things. Couldn't even get that right.
Jericho Man artists did catch that even though it's much more milder in that case (they overdid it a bit, presumably to make a point [ie to highlight the 'ethnic' or ancient character of aspects of Jericho Man's skull]). But how can you miss that?
Here are two different reconstructions of Nazlet Khater 2, one is made by Cicero Moraes and one by Ancestral Whisper. Both reconstructions are based on photos of the skull.
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Correction of my post as I cannot confirm in other pictures that Nazlet has a large subnasal area (it seems inconclusive). I should have said, his upper face is large below the cheek bones (much like Oase 2 and other fossils that do have large subnasal areas) as Nazlet's large nasal height (NH = 56,77mm) makes it difficult to say the same about him.
Strange that different pictures of his skeletal remains show Nazlet with subtly different facial proportions, with the book cover picture above seemingly showing him with a very large face compared to his cranial vault (which he has in other pictures as well, but in that pic it looks archaic). Must be some sort of paradox because, according to Thoma 1984, Nazlet's cranial vault is high.
It's safe to say we can add this reconstruction to the file of 'scientists' 'specializing' in anthropology, but who don't understand anthropology.
@Archeopteryx I don't believe in reconstructions done on photos because this method of 'adding tissues' to a picture of a skull means you're skipping the step of extracting population affinity information from the measurements and non-metrics.
Posts: 8807 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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