I don't know how accurate the reconstruction is, but it looks pretty realistic to me. I mean when I look at the reconstructed face I feel as if I am looking at the face of an alive person with the calculated age. The least accurate aspect of the reconstruction is probably coloring, as Europeans living in those latitudes must already have been mostly light pigmented during those times.
He looks a might chunky for a foreger and the eyebrows are too bushy. Don't really like the shade of his lipstick, but maybe it's a tribal thing and he's made up to impress the girls. The hairdo is off as well, around the Med coastal areas OK, but Norway? No, this guy would have a full head of hair. The last two issues are very minor: tatoo's and scars are missing.
Honest though, we really aren't very sure and probably aren't very good at coloring in the details. But who can say we didn't get lucky this time. Personally, as a minimum, I'd give him red hair and pale lips.
I think that people got lighter pigmentation with the advent of farming - the Vitimin D/Sunlight theory.
Overall he looks similar to myself, especially the shape of the cranial vault, that it's crested slightly - for want of a better word. That the back of the head is wider than the temple, and the area in front of the ears is wider than the forehead. The only differences I'd have over him would be, narrower nose, wider set eyes, and slight epicanthical folds - which I'd imagine he should have as well.
"Well 7500 years ago red hair probably did not even exist. Eyes should probably be brown as well."
Red hair did exist.
Some years ago, a British genetican calculated the age of the mutations that cause red hair to be older than Homo Sapiens and explained it by the possibility that these mutations could originate in the Neanderthals.
The age of blue eyes is calculated as "Up to 10K years old". Means, by the time, this fellow lived, did blue eyes exist for possibly 3K years.
"He looks a might chunky for a foreger"
Why? It fits the anthropologic ideas from 70 years ago.
Brachycephalic, heavyboned, brutish natives. And dolichocephalic, gracile, "Nordid", neolithic migrants from Asia.
I bet his skull was amoung the ones they based that theory on. ;)
That thing looks like it has a deficiency of some type.
While the reproduction certainly has its deficiencies, in this case, some of it was on purpose. The 15 year-old was only 125cm tall, and was thought to suffer from a specific disease (scaphocephaly). Supposedly he was still quite muscular and robust.
Which is fascinating, as I was born with Rickets, and maybe this boy also suffered from Rickets?
Pconroy,
People are not "born with rickets" - it is mostly a vitamin D deficiency due either to malnutrition or maladaptation of skin pigments, or both. Even going back to the fifties in parts of Europe, young kids like myself were treated with UV sessions if somewhat darker-skinned but living at 50 - 52 degrees northern latitude. Given there were no precautions about short-wavelength UV, I might be a candidate to develop cancer, as a side-effect.
Industrial centers in the 19th and early 20th century England had huge cases of rickets because of the then prevalent smog, that let little UV reach the people.
A side effect of mobility is maladaptation. In addition to large-distance migrations (not necessarily just S-N, but also E-W in Europe, where sunshine hours tend to increase to the east), short-distance migration might lead away from seafood sources. Without the vitamin D from fishing (which many pre-neolithic and early neolithic cultures heavily depended on), kids in the N and specifically NW would likely not have received sufficient vitamin D - unless they were lactose tolerant and drank a lot of milk in addition to eating plenty of milk products and meat.
Which is of course a strong selector for lactose tolerance.
Stay on topic. Be polite. Use facts and arguments. Be Brief. Do not post back to back comments in the same thread, unless you absolutely have to. Don't quote excessively. Google before you ask.
Source (in Norwegian)
Looks quite Norwegian (or west/central Swedish) to me. Of course, the eyes are a bit on the narrow side, and what's with the ears?
ReplyDeleteI don't know how accurate the reconstruction is, but it looks pretty realistic to me. I mean when I look at the reconstructed face I feel as if I am looking at the face of an alive person with the calculated age. The least accurate aspect of the reconstruction is probably coloring, as Europeans living in those latitudes must already have been mostly light pigmented during those times.
ReplyDeleteHe looks Greek or Turkish, possibly Cypriot, certainly not Nordic.
ReplyDeleteHis autosomal would presumably be mainly Med and/ or West Asian with that pheno.
He looks a might chunky for a foreger and the eyebrows are too bushy. Don't really like the shade of his lipstick, but maybe it's a tribal thing and he's made up to impress the girls. The hairdo is off as well, around the Med coastal areas OK, but Norway? No, this guy would have a full head of hair. The last two issues are very minor: tatoo's and scars are missing.
ReplyDeleteHonest though, we really aren't very sure and probably aren't very good at coloring in the details. But who can say we didn't get lucky this time. Personally, as a minimum, I'd give him red hair and pale lips.
Well 7500 years ago red hair probably did not even exist. Eyes should probably be brown as well.
ReplyDeleteHe looks like a well feed Otzi.
I think that people got lighter pigmentation with the advent of farming - the Vitimin D/Sunlight theory.
ReplyDeleteOverall he looks similar to myself, especially the shape of the cranial vault, that it's crested slightly - for want of a better word. That the back of the head is wider than the temple, and the area in front of the ears is wider than the forehead.
The only differences I'd have over him would be, narrower nose, wider set eyes, and slight epicanthical folds - which I'd imagine he should have as well.
Caucasian:=))))))
ReplyDeleteyou can even today find a lot of persons who looks him in Caucasus
These things never look natural.
ReplyDeleteI know they are re-creations...but the least you could do is make them look as close to a real person as possible...
That thing looks like it has a deficiency of some type. Most of them do.
Some re-creations are wonderful, but most of the time they seem to be lacking in something.
Looks like some of the guys I saw on my last vacation in Ireland.
ReplyDeleteWell 7500 years ago red hair probably did not even exist. Eyes should probably be brown as well.
ReplyDeleteLight skin, light hair and light eyes probably all evolved and spread during the Ice Age conditions of the Upper Paleolithic.
"Well 7500 years ago red hair probably did not even exist. Eyes should probably be brown as well."
ReplyDeleteRed hair did exist.
Some years ago, a British genetican calculated the age of the mutations that cause red hair to be older than Homo Sapiens and explained it by the possibility that these mutations could originate in the Neanderthals.
The age of blue eyes is calculated as "Up to 10K years old". Means, by the time, this fellow lived, did blue eyes exist for possibly 3K years.
"He looks a might chunky for a foreger"
Why? It fits the anthropologic ideas from 70 years ago.
Brachycephalic, heavyboned, brutish natives. And dolichocephalic, gracile, "Nordid", neolithic migrants from Asia.
I bet his skull was amoung the ones they based that theory on. ;)
That thing looks like it has a deficiency of some type.
ReplyDeleteWhile the reproduction certainly has its deficiencies, in this case, some of it was on purpose. The 15 year-old was only 125cm tall, and was thought to suffer from a specific disease (scaphocephaly). Supposedly he was still quite muscular and robust.
@Eurologist,
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I just did a search on scaphocephaly, and came up with the page below:
http://www.skullbaseinstitute.com/craniosynostosis-craniofacial/
It says:
more frequent than the primary type and is typically due to an underlying systemic disorder e.g. sickle cell disease, thalassemia, rickets
Which is fascinating, as I was born with Rickets, and maybe this boy also suffered from Rickets?
"Light skin, light hair and light eyes probably all evolved and spread during the Ice Age conditions of the Upper Paleolithic".
ReplyDeleteI'm very much inclined to agree.
Which is fascinating, as I was born with Rickets, and maybe this boy also suffered from Rickets?
ReplyDeletePconroy,
People are not "born with rickets" - it is mostly a vitamin D deficiency due either to malnutrition or maladaptation of skin pigments, or both. Even going back to the fifties in parts of Europe, young kids like myself were treated with UV sessions if somewhat darker-skinned but living at 50 - 52 degrees northern latitude. Given there were no precautions about short-wavelength UV, I might be a candidate to develop cancer, as a side-effect.
Industrial centers in the 19th and early 20th century England had huge cases of rickets because of the then prevalent smog, that let little UV reach the people.
A side effect of mobility is maladaptation. In addition to large-distance migrations (not necessarily just S-N, but also E-W in Europe, where sunshine hours tend to increase to the east), short-distance migration might lead away from seafood sources. Without the vitamin D from fishing (which many pre-neolithic and early neolithic cultures heavily depended on), kids in the N and specifically NW would likely not have received sufficient vitamin D - unless they were lactose tolerant and drank a lot of milk in addition to eating plenty of milk products and meat.
Which is of course a strong selector for lactose tolerance.
Dienekes, it might be worth noting, that the guy was only 1,25 m tall.
ReplyDeleteBesides, the article tells he was muscular, 15 years old, dolichocephalic and had scaphocephaly.