Scientists have reconstructed the appearance of a girl from the Stone Age on her skull

In 1881, archaeologists discovered the skull of a man buried in a cave in the village of Mladech in what is now the Czech Republic. At the time, researchers estimated his age at about 31,000 years and classified him as male.

Now, more than 140 years later, scientists have corrected that mistake by confirming that the remains belong to a 17-year-old girl who lived during the Aurignacian period (Upper Paleolithic, approximately 43,000 to 26,000 years ago). Team published his conclusions in the framework of a scientific work entitled "Forensic approach to the study of the skull of Mladech 1". It details how scientists reclassified the sex of "one of the oldest Homo sapiens found in Europe."

Using information gathered from 19th-century archaeological excavations, as well as forensic facial reconstructions, performed by researchers in the 1930s, scientists used computed tomography to create a digitized image skulls. Since the lower jaw was missing, experts turned to modern data to fill in any gaps.

After obtaining a complete digital image of the skull, Moraes used the projection of lines corresponding to the boundaries of soft tissues and bone structures to create an approximation of the face. Based on them, digital images were created showing what this person could look like.