Scientists have shown the face of a woman who lived 45,000 years ago (5 photos)

In 1950, in one of the caves in the Czech Republic, archaeologists discovered fractured skull. Decades later, geneticists have deciphered the genome woman who lived 45,000 years ago. And an international group of scientists from Brazil, Australia and Italy using computer technology modeling succeeded in recreating the oldest face in the world.







Fossils found in the Czech Republic over 70 years ago are only part of the skull. According to the researchers, after death, the woman was eaten by some animal.

Without direct access to the find, the international team used ready-made measurements and reference images of the skull. Such the process is known as facial reconstruction, which is applied in forensic medical examination.



The woman was named Zlata Kun, which is translated from Czech means golden horse. She was one of the first Homo sapiens to live in Eurasia after the migration of the species from Africa, its genome also found about three percent of Neanderthal genes.

Zlata Kun is considered a modern man, because her the group had very large brains compared to early humans, descended from ape-like ancestors.



According to Brazilian graphics expert Cicero Moraes, most scientists were surprised by the structure of the face, especially the lower jaw.

"The first experts decided that it was a man, and it is easy to understand why, because the skull has characteristics that are quite correspond to the male sex, including a strong jaw. We see, that Zlata Kun looks like a Neanderthal with her jaw," said Moraes.



Nine skull fragments were found in 1950. Archaeologists it is believed that after death, the head of a woman was chewed by an animal. It could be a wolf or a hyena, both species were present in the fauna of that time.

In 2018, an international team of researchers began work on 3D reconstruction of missing areas using statistics of 61 ancient skulls scanned with computed tomography. The result is a realistic image of a woman with dark curly hair and brown eyes.

Researchers at the Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Max Planck Society, Germany, came to the conclusion that Zlata Kun lived just 2,000 years after the first contact between humans and Neanderthals. The DNA of this woman and her population is not found in modern people neither in Asia nor in Europe, where subsequently colonized by Homo sapiens. It turns out that the person from the Czech Republic is older than the others contenders for the title of the most ancient European.