(ORDO NEWS) — It is believed that Homo sapiens appeared approximately 150-200 thousand years ago, while 80-60 thousand years ago Homo sapiens began to actively spread across Eurasia.
About 40 thousand years ago, the habitat of people covered almost the entire Earth. But what did the first people who settled Europe look like several tens of thousands of years ago?
This question was recently answered by scientists who recreated the face from a skull discovered by archaeologists in 1881 in a cave in what is now the Czech Republic.
At the end of the 19th century, it became known that the age of the skull is 31,000 years, while it was reported that it presumably belongs to a man.
However, 140 years later, it turned out that scientists were mistaken. In fact, a seventeen-year-old girl who lived in the Aurignacian era (from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago) was buried in the cave.
When archaeologists discovered the skull and analyzed it, they concluded from the facial features that the skull belonged to a man. But why were they wrong?
The thing is that the skull was examined by itself. Sufficiently rough facial features led scientists astray.
But when other human skulls were later found in the same place and compared, it turned out that the skull still belonged to a woman. That is, it was very different from other skulls, which were undoubtedly male.
In a recent study, scientists used data from archaeological excavations from the 19th century, as well as facial reconstruction performed by forensic scientists in the 30s of the last century.
However, in those days, the possibilities of specialists were limited, since the skull did not have a lower jaw.
In the current study, the authors used computed tomography to obtain a three-dimensional model.
To reconstruct the jaw, they turned to data on the jaws of modern humans from 200 CT scans of various people, as well as data obtained from archaeological excavations.
When the authors of the work received a three-dimensional model of the skull, they used soft tissue thickness markers. These markers indicate the thickness of the skin in certain areas of the face.
Markers are statistical averages of data obtained from living people. However, they do not talk about some details, such as the shape of the eyes, the size of the mouth, nose, etc.
To supplement the data on the face, the scientists again turned to images obtained as a result of computed tomography of living people.
They then deformed the bones and soft tissues of the CT scans to make them look like the skull of an ancient skull.
Subsequently, data on some facial features were transferred to the ancient skull.
As a result, it turned out to create several images of the face of an ancient girl with different facial expressions. Among them, a face with a neutral facial image was chosen.
Of course, researchers do not have information about a woman’s skin color, hair color, iris, etc. Therefore, the most correct from a scientific point of view is an image made in gray with closed eyes and no hair.
The second image is more artistic. However, it does give an idea of what humans might have looked like over 30,000 years ago.
As you can see, the woman has pronounced cheekbones, her eyes are set wide apart. In general, facial features bear little resemblance to the modern Caucasoid race.
Unfortunately, there is no more accurate data on how ancient people looked like in the Aurignacian era.
However, you can see what a man who lived 5,000 years ago looked like. Recall that the body of a man who had lain in the ice for thousands of years was discovered in the Alps.
Next to the skull, the researchers found other items that belonged to people of the Stone Age. Basically, these were various stone artifacts, as well as bone tips of throwing tools and several teeth.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to draw conclusions from these artifacts about who the young woman was and what kind of life she led. Most likely, it will never be possible to find out.
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.