Through DNA, isotope and radiocarbon analysis, faces from the past can now actually be scientifically reconstructed and not just artistically recreated. Scientists from the University of Aberdeen looked through Perth Museum’s collections and then rebuilt the heads based on the remains they found.
The animated digital models appear extremely realistic and not at all alien. If they were still alive today, they wouldn’t stand out on the street. A woman lived between about 2200 and 2000 BC. BC, i.e. in the Bronze Age. “Put her in everyday clothes today and no one would bat an eyelash,” Professor Marc Oxenham, a bioarchaeology specialist at the University of Aberdeen, told the Guardian.
The woman’s remains were found while plowing at Lochlands Farm in Perthshire. It rested protected for over 2000 years in a burial chamber that was broken into by a tractor. The woman was between 30 and 50 years old and her remains show that she probably suffered from back pain and a healed injury on her forehead indicates an accident. Her face looks like it does today, but at only about 1.50 meters tall she was unusually small.
A young man who lived between 1185 and 1290 AD had a dramatic fate. He wouldn’t stand out in a big city today either. The deceased had several broken ribs and was probably the victim of a crime. Oxenham: “We don’t know exactly what caused this blunt force trauma. He could have been kicked by a horse or hit in the chest with a club-like object. But the way he was buried, quickly in a tiny pit thrown, suggests that they wanted to keep the crime a secret.”
A 16th-century nun suffered from a poorly healed broken foot and was probably limping. A Pict from the early Middle Ages was unearthed in the 1980s. Nobody would particularly notice him at a weekly market these days. The man spent his childhood in Ireland or on the west coast of Scotland. He moved to Perthshire late in life. He was a farmer and lived to be over 40 years old. His body is shaped by hard agricultural work. All portraits were created by Chris Rynn, an expert in forensics and facial reconstruction.
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