A 3D scan of a woman’s skull found in a tomb in Sweden was used to recreate her face.
In the early 1920s, a Stone Age tomb was found by workers in Lagmansören, Sweden, when they were building a road. In it were the skeletal remains of a woman and child who died 4,000 years ago. The woman was about 30 years old when she died and the boy was about seven years old. The woman’s DNA was so deteriorated that it was not possible to confirm if they were related or if they just belonged to the same tribe.
The woman’s remains showed no signs of malnutrition, injury or illness, so how she died is unknown. Analysis of the teeth determined that she ate mainly on vegetables, despite living in a coastal area. The representation of this woman is in the permanent exhibition on Prehistory of the Vasternorland Museum (Sweden).
The face reconstruction process
For starters, the woman’s skull was 3D scanned, and from there, the muscles of her face were built one by one. The mouth was reproduced according to the structure of the teeth and the shape of the eyes was designed thanks to the attachment of the ligament in the eye socket that indicates the depth and inclination of the eyes.
Due to the state of the DNA, it is also unknown what color his hair or eyes were. However, previous research helps to intuit her appearance. In ancient Scandinavia there were three waves of migration. The first occurred nearly 12,000 years ago, the second dates from about 5,000 years ago, and the third about 3,500 years ago.
With this information, Oscar Nilsson, archaeologist and responsible for this reconstruction, placed the woman in the second period of migrations, a time when she would be alive. The figure represents a mixture of the “Pitted Ware” and “Battle Axe” cultures. At that time, much of the population had brown hair and eyes and pale skin tone. It is not known whether his life was nomadic or sedentary because there was a transition period that lasted hundreds of years. Therefore, Nilsson’s team interpreted that it was dedicated to hunting and agriculture.
For the reconstruction, Helena Gjaerum, an archaeologist, investigated the climate, landscape, flora and fauna of Lagmansören in the Neolithic. Based on his findings, he designed the moose outfit, the reindeer and beaver shoes, and the fox backpack. He was also inspired by other clothing depictions such as that of Özti, known as the Iceman.
Imagine the past thanks to 3D
Using 3D technology to reconstruct images from the past is nothing new. Using X-ray technology, a team of archaeologists depicted the face of a Neolithic man decades ago. His skull is known as the Skull of Jericho and was found in the West Bank (Palestine) in 1953. The bone remains were in good condition because they were in plaster, a very common rite at that time.
Also the faces of the mummies were represented in 3D images. In this case, the research group at Parabon NanoLabs (USA) used the DNA of three mummies to get an idea of what the people of Ancient Egypt were like 2,000 years ago. The result was three dark-haired men with dark eyes and hair in their 25s.
REFERENCE
See a stunning, realistic reconstruction of a Stone Age woman
Images: Vasternorland Museum