(ORDO NEWS) — The Swedish Museum has presented the world with the appearance of a woman who lived 4,000 years ago in the Stone Age.
The appearance was recreated by renowned 3D artist Oskar Nilsson, an archaeologist-reenactor who over the past 20 years has recreated the faces of more than a hundred ancient people. The portal Ancient Origins tells about how the work on restoring the image of the ancient hunter took place.
The woman’s remains were discovered about a hundred years ago in a stone-lined grave deep in the forests of northeastern Sweden.
Next to her were found the remains of a 7-year-old boy, who, according to Swedish researchers, was her son. Archaeologists believe the pair belonged to a nomadic group of hunters who followed migratory animals along the 430-kilometer-long Indalselven River.
The woman was buried at the age of thirty, scientists could not find out the cause of death. In 2020, archaeologist Oskar Nilsson, known for his reconstructions of the faces of ancient people, expressed interest in the remains.
The remains of a 4,000-year-old Stone Age woman, along with those of a boy, are the oldest skeletons ever found in this region of Sweden.
The curators of the museum have decided to show visitors “the oldest face from the north – a woman from Lagmansoren” as part of a large-scale project that represents human life in the northern region for 9.5 millennia.
The skull was in good condition, as it was in conditions that minimize the effect of time and negative environmental factors on artifacts.
Oskar Nilsson performed a 3D scan of the woman’s skull and then 3D printed a copy of it. Then, using facial restoration techniques, he recreated facial muscles with clay, covered them with a plasticine layer, and cast them all together from skin-colored silicone, on which he cut wrinkles and skin irregularities.
The height of a woman during her lifetime was a little more than one and a half meters, which, according to scientists, was not enough for that time. She had protruding teeth, a crooked nose, low-set eyes, and a heavy “masculine” lower jaw.
Although the Lagmansøren woman is well preserved, scientists have not been able to extract usable DNA. This meant that the color of a woman’s skin and hair could not be determined chemically. However, Nilsson analyzed historical migration patterns and concluded that she probably had fair skin and dark hair.
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