Originally posted by Big O:
quote:The face of a bronze age fighter
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
quote:the Daily mail article, link above has 18 pictures of the burial and noted for jewelry and other gold objects
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
quote:The face of a bronze age fighter [/QB]
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
quote:So a reconstruction of course depends on how well a skull is preserved.
However, due to the poor condition of the skull, Houlton was unable to accurately reconstruct the area around the eyes and nose. Instead, the team used average face templates of 50 modern Greek males that were 25 to 35 years old.
They also looked at artifacts from the Mycenaean and Minoan civilizations, such as wall paintings, to determine the Griffin Warrior's skin tone and hair color.
quote:I'm looking at the sequence of photos trying to figure it out
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
There is also a Facebook page about the skull and the excavations
Griffin Warrior tomb Facebook [/QB]
quote:
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
Here are some more images of the skull and the process of reconstruction:
Griffin warrior skull reconstruction
quote:^ I reduced the size here. Posting occasional big images is Ok occasionally
Originally posted by Big O:
quote:In your graphic, you reference the below Livescience article about the Parabon Labs analysis
Originally posted by Big O:
FALSE
quote:^^ this is not the whole article but it is not long, the rest at the link on top of the quote
https://www.livescience.com/ancient-egyptian-mummies-faces-reconstructed-dna
Forensic reconstruction of the mummies JK2911, JK2134 and JK2888. (Image credit: Parabon NanoLabs)
3 Egyptian mummy faces revealed in stunning reconstruction
By Mindy Weisberger published September 27, 2021
A forensic artist created the 3D reconstructions based on genetic data.
The faces of three men who lived in ancient Egypt more than 2,000 years ago have been brought back to life. Digital reconstructions depict the men at age 25, based on DNA data extracted from their mummified remains.
The mummies came from Abusir el-Meleq, an ancient Egyptian city on a floodplain to the south of Cairo, and they were buried between 1380 B.C. and A.D. 425. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Tübingen, Germany, sequenced the mummies' DNA in 2017; it was the first successful reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian mummy's genome, Live Science reported at the time.
And now, researchers at Parabon NanoLabs, a DNA technology company in Reston, Virginia, have used that genetic data to create 3D models of the mummies' faces through a process called forensic DNA phenotyping, which uses genetic analysis to predict the shape of facial features and other aspects of a person's physical appearance.
quote:Your graphic referred to the Livescience article
Originally posted by Big O:
Umm Lioness you MISSED the part where it stated that the basis of the fallacy is that these three men cannot represent Khamet based on the fact that they are late dynastic Northern Egyptians.
quote:I added skulls and also an article about Naias´DNA.
Originally posted by the lioness,:
I think anthropologically considering to what degree something is "deep rooted African"
is more useful then considering the much more vague term "black" or European instead of "white"
and in some of these "deep rooted native American"
quote:Yes, labels are somewhat difficult sometimes. As "African". We all sometimes came from Africa. But how long time is it reasonable to call people Africans? If you lived outside Africa for thousands, yes even ten thousands of years, and your DNA has undergone changes, and you maybe phenotypically look different, are you still an African? And peoples who have been out of Africa very long time but superficially look a bit African, like Melanesians, Australians or Andamanese?
Originally posted by the lioness,:
I think anthropologically considering to what degree something is "deep rooted African"
is more useful then considering the much more vague term "black" or European instead of "white"
and in some of these "deep rooted native American"
quote:
In Graeco-Roman times in the Lower-Egyptian Fayoum region, a painted portrait was traditionally placed over the face of a deceased individual. These mummy portraits show considerable inter-individual diversity. This suggests that those portraits were created separately for each individual. In the present study, we investigated a completely wrapped young infant mummy with a typical mummy portrait by whole body CT analysis. This was used to obtain physical information on the infant and provided the basis for a virtual face reconstruction in order to compare it to the mummy portrait. We identified the mummy as a 3–4 years old male infant that had been prepared according to the typical ancient Egyptian mummification rites. It most probably suffered from a right-sided pulmonary infection which may also be the cause of death. The reconstructed face showed considerable similarities to the portrait, confirming the portrait’s specificity to this individual. However, there are some differences between portrait and face. The portrait seems to show a slightly older individual which may be due to artistic conventions of that period.
quote:Interesting argument and also very hypocritical as well.
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
Native Americans are not all alike, there is a lot of variation, as one can expect from the inhabitants of a whole double continent.
quote:But it is bit off topic, better return to facial reconstructions which is the subject of the thread.
Native Americans are not all alike, there is a lot of variation, as one can expect from the inhabitants of a whole double continent
quote:(translated from Portuguese)
Tothmea
Tothmea is a mummy that is part of the collection of the Egyptian and Rosa Cruz Museum in Curitiba (PR). She is an Egyptian who probably lived at the end of the Third Intermediate Period (1070–712 BC) or at the beginning of the Late Epoch ( c. 712–332 BC) – between the 6th or 7th centuries BC . It is estimated that she died at the age of 27.
The Egyptian received the nickname “Tothmea” from a lord named Farrar, in 1888, as a tribute to the pharaohs Tutemés, who ruled Egypt during the 18th dynasty (between the years 1504 and 1425 BC ).
forensic facial reconstruction
The first forensic facial reconstruction of the Tothmea mummy was carried out in 2013. The work was the result of a partnership between the Egyptian Museum and Rosa Cruz, the archeologist Moacir Elias Santos and the 3D designer Cícero Moraes .
In 2019, the same team got together and the Tothmea+6 project was launched, alluding to the 6 years since the first presentation. On this occasion, the mummy's face was "upgraded", using the latest forensic facial reconstruction techniques available.
quote:Logic tells that Africa is larger than all these places combined, yet is not considered to be diverse as it is. lol smh However, this does apply to any other place, including the Americas. lol That’s the point I’m making here!
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
In your map you show USA compared to Africa. I talked about the whole of the Americas, including North America, Central America, the Caribbean and South America.
As I wrote:quote:But it is bit off topic, better return to facial reconstructions which is the subject of the thread.
Native Americans are not all alike, there is a lot of variation, as one can expect from the inhabitants of a whole double continent
quote:No it doesn't work like that since the american continent got colonized quite recently in human history meanwhile Africa is where it all began this is why it has the highest level of genetic diversity. Amerindians are much more homogeneous in comparison whether physically or genetically.
Originally posted by Ish Geber: Logic tells that Africa is larger than all these places combined, yet is not considered to be diverse as it is. lol smh However, this does apply to any other place, including the Americas. lol That’s the point I’m making here! [/QB]
quote:Africa´s area is 30 370 000 km²
Originally posted by Ish Geber
Logic tells that Africa is larger than all these places combined
quote:It's clear you don't really understand the argument. I know / we know there's a larger level in genetic and physical diversity in Africa, because mankind had a longer time to develop in Africa, into many different branches. Some migrated out of Africa earlier than others. This is why Africans have a higher diversity and gene and phenotype. Secondly comes the admixture in some African populations (over time).
Originally posted by Antalas:
quote:No it doesn't work like that since the american continent got colonized quite recently in human history meanwhile Africa is where it all began this is why it has the highest level of genetic diversity. Amerindians are much more homogeneous in comparison whether physically or genetically.
Originally posted by Ish Geber: Logic tells that Africa is larger than all these places combined, yet is not considered to be diverse as it is. lol smh However, this does apply to any other place, including the Americas. lol That’s the point I’m making here!
quote:And that is a trash argument.
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
Native Americans are not all alike, there is a lot of variation, as one can expect from the inhabitants of a whole double continent.
quote:what's hypocritical? He's saying there's diversity in the Americas, not all natives Americans are the same type
Originally posted by Ish Geber:
quote:Interesting argument and also very hypocritical as well.
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
Native Americans are not all alike, there is a lot of variation, as one can expect from the inhabitants of a whole double continent.
quote:You obviously aren't the smartest in the bunch. Most of Latin Americas habitation is by a people who are heavy mixed with Iberian and Africans, with some being actually being more Iberian and some actually more African. The actual inhibitors as Amerindian are a small group spread out over the Amazon. Actual native Amerindians are in the Amazon.
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
quote:Africa´s area is 30 370 000 km²
Originally posted by Ish Geber
Logic tells that Africa is larger than all these places combined
The Americas area is together 42 549 000 km2 including Greenland. (without Greenland it covers 40 383 000 km²)
The population of the Americas is today 964 920 000
The population of Africa is about 1,216 billion so Africa has a larger population than the Americas.
Asia is the largest continent with 44 580 000 km².
Europe is not so big with an area of 10 180 000 km2.
Australia is the smallest continent with an area of 7 692 000 km².
All numbers according to Wikipedia.
quote:I bring it up, because I actually know what I am talking about. I have been there and seen the people from up-close unlike people who scrap for pictures on the internet. Amerindians have very distinctive traits, no matter where they are. And these are very similar. All this variety he/ she is claiming is not even true. Is there a slight difference, that's a yes. But this great diversity babble is not true. It's illogical as well, since the Americans was only relatively recent inhabited by only a few incoming migrations. So Amerindians came from only a few pipelines/ bottlenecks.
Originally posted by the lioness,:
quote:what's hypocritical? He's saying there's diversity in the Americas, not all natives Americans are the same type
Originally posted by Ish Geber:
quote:Interesting argument and also very hypocritical as well.
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
Native Americans are not all alike, there is a lot of variation, as one can expect from the inhabitants of a whole double continent.
so that someone in the Amazon might resemble that reconstruction more than a Native American say in
Monatana
So why are you bringing up Africa?
quote:
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
quote:Again, he posted a picture of a reconstruction of Luzia, a skull found in Brazil
Originally posted by Ish Geber:
I bring it up, because I actually know what I am talking about. I have been there and seen the people from up-close unlike people who scrap for pictures on the internet. Amerindians have very distinctive traits, no matter where they are. And these are very similar. All this variety he/ she is claiming is not even true. Is there a slight difference, that's a yes. But this great diversity babble is not true. It's illogical as well, since the Americans was only relatively recent inhabited by only a few incoming migrations. So Amerindians came from only a few pipelines/ bottlenecks.
And why I bring up Africa is because you in particular have trouble with Africans being diverse and indigenous to the continent. If someone slightly looks off from the "true negroe" that person had admixture because of some back migration. Yet, when it comes to a place like Europe, let it be Southern Europe even that place can be as diverse as we can imagine, without any admixture. You've been there done that. And I don't want to hear any excuses here. And Archeopteryx will fight tooth and nail when it comes to African diversity. That's the hypocritical part!
quote:He also posted this. It a reconstruction of an 18th dyn Egyptian mummy and looks African,
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
[QB] Here is an Egyptian mummy, called "Thotmea". Cicero Moraes who was involved in the reconstruction of Shep-en-Isis was also involved in this reconstruction.
[QUOTE] Tothmea
Tothmea is a mummy that is part of the collection of the Egyptian and Rosa Cruz Museum in Curitiba (PR). She is an Egyptian who probably lived at the end of the Third Intermediate Period (1070–712 BC) or at the beginning of the Late Epoch ( c. 712–332 BC) – between the 6th or 7th centuries BC . It is estimated that she died at the age of 27.
The Egyptian received the nickname “Tothmea” from a lord named Farrar, in 1888, as a tribute to the pharaohs Tutemés, who ruled Egypt during the 18th dynasty (between the years 1504 and 1425 BC ).
forensic facial reconstruction
quote:You claimed Africa was larger than North America, Central America, the Caribbeans and South America together. I showed it is not so. Of course I know that the demographic situation in the Americas of today is quite different from what it was in precolumbian times. Do not take me for a fool.
Originally posted by Ish Geber:
You obviously aren't the smartest in the bunch. Most of Latin Americas habitation is by a people who are heavy mixed with Iberian and Africans, with some being actually being more Iberian and some actually more African. The actual inhibitors as Amerindian are a small group spread out over the Amazon. Actual native Amerindians are in the Amazon.
White European males did a great number of rapes in the Americas and Australia, which have shifted the ethnic demographic landscape to what it is now.
quote:TV series unveils ‘biblical’ faces
The lifelike faces, fashioned from clay by a Canadian forensic artist, are based on the skulls of four people whose remains were unearthed in Israel. They include a male, perhaps a hunter, who lived 6,000 years ago and was buried in a Judean Desert cave; a baby interred inside a vase underneath a Jordan Valley house in the same period; a woman thought to be a Philistine who lived on the coast near Ashkelon 3,000 years ago; and a Galilean male who lived around the time of Jesus.
quote:Gazing at faces from the Bible? Article in The Jerusalem Post.
Lost Faces of the Bible, a four-part series on the National Geographic channel, follows forensic and facial reconstruction experts as they analyze four ancient skulls from the Land of Israel and create a face to match them based on information they gather from the find, such as its gender, age and health defects. Professor Israel Hershkovitz from the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Medical School conducts a CAT scan on the skull in each episode, after which Victoria Lywood, a forensic artist based in Montreal, creates an extremely realistic looking face, including the hair, skin and even wrinkles. Simultaneously, another expert creates a three-dimensional printing of a replica of the skull to compare to Lywood’s.
quote:A Face from Jesus time
With three well-preserved specimens from the time of Jesus in hand, Neave used computerized tomography to create X-ray "slices" of the skulls, thus revealing minute details about each one's structure. Special computer programs then evaluated reams of information about known measurements of the thickness of soft tissue at key areas on human faces. This made it possible to re-create the muscles and skin overlying a representative Semite skull.
The entire process was accomplished using software that verified the results with anthropological data. From this data, the researchers built a digital 3D reconstruction of the face. Next, they created a cast of the skull. Layers of clay matching the thickness of facial tissues specified by the computer program were then applied, along with simulated skin. The nose, lips and eyelids were then modeled to follow the shape determined by the underlying muscles.
Two key factors could not be determined from the skull—Jesus's hair and coloration. To fill in these parts of the picture, Neave's team turned to drawings found at various archeological sites, dated to the first century. Drawn before the Bible was compiled, they held crucial clues that enabled the researchers to determine that Jesus had dark rather than light-colored eyes. They also pointed out that in keeping with Jewish tradition, he was bearded as well.
It was the Bible, however, that resolved the question of the length of Jesus's hair. While most religious artists have put long hair on Christ, most biblical scholars believe that it was probably short with tight curls. This assumption, however, contradicted what many believe to be the most authentic depiction: the face seen in the image on the famous—some say infamous—Shroud of Turin.
quote:Taung child
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."
quote:From Archaeology Magazine
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.
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:Ivory Bangle Lady
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.
quote:I wonder how they came to that conclusion, when ...:
Originally posted by Antalas:
Natufian :
quote:What is the source of this?
Originally posted by Antalas:
Egyptian from Thebes, 18th dynasty :
quote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Dynasty_of_Egypt
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:(Metmuseum).
"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:(McDonald, Mary M.A., Assoc. Prof., Archaeology, Kharga Oasis, Egypt: key to timing transdesert contacts in the mid-Holocene)
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:http://egyptology.yale.edu/expeditions/past-and-joint-projects/theban-desert-road-survey-and-yale-toshka-desert-survey
”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)."
quote:Neolithic Face Time - Archaeology Magazine 2017
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.”
quote:Now there seems to have been made a DNA analysis of the remains of the Griffin Warrior
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
Maybe start in Greece with a man from a tomb at the palace of Nestor on Peloponnesos from Mycenaean time.
quote:The face of a bronze age fighter
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
quote:Alright now these reconstructions might be getting a little outta hand
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
Reconstruction of her funeral
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
quote:See the striking facial reconstruction of a Paleolithic woman who lived 31,000 years ago
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."
quote:DNA reveals first look at enigmatic human relative - National Geographic 2019
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.
quote:Don't fall for the bullshit
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
by analyzing their DNA researchers can get a glimpse of what they looked like.
quote: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.
Originally posted by the lioness,:
quote:Don't fall for the bullshit
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
by analyzing their DNA researchers can get a glimpse of what they looked like.
It's speculation by a forensic artist to sell news articles
> not information derived from the DNA
quote:Reconstructing Denisovan Anatomy Using DNA Methylation Maps
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:This mainly pertains to a claim regarding predicting skeletal traits
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
quote: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.
Originally posted by the lioness,:
quote:Don't fall for the bullshit
Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
by analyzing their DNA researchers can get a glimpse of what they looked like.
It's speculation by a forensic artist to sell news articles
> not information derived from the DNA
quote:Reconstructing Denisovan Anatomy Using DNA Methylation Maps
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.
Cell, 2019
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.
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.
quote: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.
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?
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.
quote:100,000 Year-Old Skulls Shed Light On The Origins Of Modern Humans
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.
quote: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.
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
quote:Facebook, 2019
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.
quote:A video about how her face was reconstructed:
Originally posted by Antalas:
2000 years old Meritamun's face :
quote:https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/written-bone/forensic-anthropology/forensic-facial-reconstruction
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.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
quote:Nazlet has a large subnasal area, among other things. Couldn't even get that right.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
quote: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.
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?
quote:I am inclined to agree. The best must be a good cast of the skull, a good understanding of anatomy, knowledge about the context the skull was found in, and other similar skulls and population affinity. Then the old fashioned modelling.
Originally posted by Swenet:
[QB] 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, large upper face below the cheek bones (much like Oase 2 and other individuals who 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 show Nazlet with subtly different facial proportions, with the 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.
quote:
9,000-year-old 'Jericho Skull' reconstructed to reveal true face
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF Published: JANUARY 11, 2023
The “Jericho Skull” as it is widely called was one of seven discovered in 1953 by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon in is located in the the British Museum in London.
A 9,000-year-old human skull discovered near the West Bank city of Jericho has a new face, thanks to technology and a multi-national research team.
The “Jericho Skull” as it is widely called was one of seven discovered in 1953 by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon and is located in the British Museum in London.
The museum said that the skull was covered with plaster and the eye sockets inlaid with cowrie shells, likely to represent the dead individual.
The skull, the museum said, belonged to an adult male and showed evidence of being artificially shaped, possibly by wrapping cloth around his head when an infant, leading researchers to consider that he was identified as somebody special from this early age.
“We don’t know how he died but the removal of the skull may have been carried out after the flesh and sinews had decayed,” the museum explained. “Plaster was carefully modeled over the front of the skull but does not extend over the back, which was perhaps originally provided with some other material to look like hair.”
How did researchers reconstruct the face?
The latest development was thanks to Brazilian graphics expert Cícero Moraes, the leader of the project to reconstruct the face of the human whose skull has been sitting in the London museum.
The reconstruction was made possible after the museum issued images from micro-CT scans of the skull in 2016. The measurements were then used to create a virtual 3D model which was used by the new team to reconstruct the face.
"There is a lot of mystery around this material," Moraes said according to Ancient Origins. "Thanks to new technologies we are discovering new things about the pieces, but there is still a lot to be studied."
Now a Palestinian city under Area A of the Oslo Accords, Jericho is an ancient city and is described in the book of Joshua as the first Canaanite city the Israelites attacked after entering the land of Israel and crossing the Jordan River.
quote:Du, Panxin et al 2024: Ancient genome of the Chinese Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou. - Current Biology
Summary
Emperor Wu (武帝, Wudi) of the Xianbei-led Northern Zhou dynasty, named Yuwen Yong (宇文邕, 543–578 CE), was a highly influential emperor who reformed the system of regional troops, pacified the Turks, and unified the northern part of the country. His genetic profile and physical characteristics, including his appearance and potential diseases, have garnered significant interest from the academic community and the public. In this study, we have successfully generated a 0.343×-coverage genome of Wudi with 1,011,419 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on the 1240k panel. By analyzing pigmentation-relevant SNPs and conducting cranial CT-based facial reconstruction, we have determined that Wudi possessed a typical East or Northeast Asian appearance. Furthermore, pathogenic SNPs suggest Wudi faced an increased susceptibility to certain diseases, such as stroke. Wudi shared the closest genetic relationship with ancient Khitan and Heishui Mohe samples and modern Daur and Mongolian populations but also showed additional affinity with Yellow River (YR) farmers. We estimated that Wudi derived 61% of his ancestry from ancient Northeast Asians (ANAs) and nearly one-third from YR farmer-related groups. This can likely be attributed to continuous intermarriage between Xianbei royal families, and local Han aristocrats.1,2 Furthermore, our study has revealed genetic diversities among available ancient Xianbei individuals from different regions, suggesting that the formation of the Xianbei was a dynamic process influenced by admixture with surrounding populations.
