I'm just glad that the dumb idea that Neanderthals were dumb, club carrying knuckledraggers is finally being laid to rest. I hope we eventually learn what happened to them. They survived the choke point of 75,000 years ago only to disappear 30,000 years later. So cool to put a face to the name :-)
show comments
groos
I wonder have the reconstruction techniques been verified by a double-blind experiment to reconstruct the face of a homo sapiens from a skull with a known photograph. Otherwise, you're just wondering how much of it is just artistry and how much solid, verified technique.
show comments
cryzinger
> Neanderthal skulls have huge brow ridges and lack chins, with a projecting midface that results in more prominent noses. But the recreated face suggests those differences were not so stark in life.
This surprised me enough to scroll back up and look at the reconstruction again, because it looks the woman definitely has (what I would think of as) a chin--which supports the "not so stark in real life" part. But if the skulls are that different, how would a Neanderthal face end up looking so similar to a human's? Did they have cartilage or something that doesn't get preserved in these skeletal remains?
show comments
kazinator
They had no privacy laws in the Paleolithic era, so this sort of doxxing is totally legit. Neanderthals cannot simply rely on the flesh being gone and bone being replaced by stone to conceal their faces.
amanaplanacanal
I'm skeptical. Is this kind of facial reconstruction from a skull legit? Or is it pseudoscience?
I'm just glad that the dumb idea that Neanderthals were dumb, club carrying knuckledraggers is finally being laid to rest. I hope we eventually learn what happened to them. They survived the choke point of 75,000 years ago only to disappear 30,000 years later. So cool to put a face to the name :-)
I wonder have the reconstruction techniques been verified by a double-blind experiment to reconstruct the face of a homo sapiens from a skull with a known photograph. Otherwise, you're just wondering how much of it is just artistry and how much solid, verified technique.
> Neanderthal skulls have huge brow ridges and lack chins, with a projecting midface that results in more prominent noses. But the recreated face suggests those differences were not so stark in life.
This surprised me enough to scroll back up and look at the reconstruction again, because it looks the woman definitely has (what I would think of as) a chin--which supports the "not so stark in real life" part. But if the skulls are that different, how would a Neanderthal face end up looking so similar to a human's? Did they have cartilage or something that doesn't get preserved in these skeletal remains?
They had no privacy laws in the Paleolithic era, so this sort of doxxing is totally legit. Neanderthals cannot simply rely on the flesh being gone and bone being replaced by stone to conceal their faces.
I'm skeptical. Is this kind of facial reconstruction from a skull legit? Or is it pseudoscience?