Scientists have reconstructed the face of a very ancient prehistoric Neanderthal by collecting and processing a 70,000-year-old fossil of part of an ancient human skull.
An amateur paleontologist found a part of the skull of the first Neanderthals found on the coast of the North Sea in the Netherlands in a hole with a collection of seashells, and gave it to the National Museum of Archeology in the Dutch city of Leiden in 2009.
The skull fragment found measures 3.9 inches x 2.3 inches and was classified as the skull of the first very ancient Neanderthals.
According to scientists and researchers from Leiden University and the Max Planck Institute in Germany, the discovered part of the skull belonged to a young man with a strong build who was feeding mainly on meat, according to the “newsweek” website.
The researchers determined that the owner of the skull had a benign tumor that caused a lump on his right eyebrow, and they named the man “Krijn”.
Krijn is believed to have been a resident of Dogerland, a prehistoric land bridge linking England to Europe, now submerged in the sea off the Dutch coast.
A couple who specialize in reconstructing faces from ancient human remains, artists Alphonse and Adri Kines, have recreated Krijn’s face in detail and given him a wonderful smile.
In a video, Adre Keynes said that Neanderthals had flat foreheads with prominent eyebrows, prominent middle faces, and large noses and nostrils.
The pair used a previously reconstructed French Neanderthal skull as a starting point for the construction of Krijn’s skull, using the excavated fragment and digital scans of other Neanderthal skull fragments to obtain a hypothetical first view of Krijn’s face.
Kriegen’s smiling face will be displayed as part of the “Doggerland” exhibition at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, which presents the story of the first prehistoric inhabitants, according to the museum’s website.