A NEW digitalized photo of a Neanderthal man alive about 56,000 years ago has been revealed with some unexpected softer features.
The recreation is based on skeletal remains found in 1908 inside a cave in La Chapelle-aux-Saints, a commune in south-central France.
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Neanderthals went extinct about 40,000 years ago.
The Neanderthal in the digital images lived to be about 40 years old.
Scientists estimated that the Neanderthal also lived sometime between 47,000 and 56,000 years ago.
The images were created by the study co-author Cícero Moraes, a Brazilian graphics expert.
Researchers presented the images at a conference presented by the Italian Ministry of Culture in October.
The renderings were created using an existing computed tomography (CT) scan of the skull.
Measurements of the facial structure from the skull were compared to those of similar human skulls in a database to get the framework.
“We generated two images, one more objective with just the bust in sepia tone without hair, and another more speculative [and] colorful with a beard and hair,” researchers told Live Science.
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“This image shows how Neanderthals were similar to us, but at the same time, they were different, with more obvious peculiarities such as the absence of a chin, for example.
“Even so, it is impossible not to look at the image and try to imagine what that individual’s life was like, thousands of years ago.”
MORE HUMAN THAN ESTIMATED
Study co-author Francesco Galassi, an associate professor of physical anthropology at the University of Lodz in Poland, told Live Science that the imaging revealed a whole new outlook on what Neanderthals looked like.
Many older depictions showed them looking much different than humans.
The images typically depicted Neanderthals looking more rugged and brutal.
But it turns out, their looks could be much more similar to humans than people have imagined.
The images show the Neanderthal having softer features, making the man actually come off as conventionally good-looking – along with having an impressive beard.
“If one carefully observes the approximations offered over the years, spanning almost over one century, it can be seen how the facial traits of this Neanderthal man have been softened and ‘humanized,’” Galassi told Live Science.
“Abandoning a more brutal perception or interpretation of it, which characterized the idea [that] past anthropologists once had of Neanderthals.”
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