Scientists have restored the face of Zlatykuni - a woman who lived 45 thousand years ago

Scientists restored the appearance of a woman who lived on the territory of modern Czech Republic about 45 thousand years ago. This is the oldest person who managed to carry out genetic sequencing.

It was possible to restore the face thanks to a skull split in two, discovered back in the 1950s. Initially, it was assumed that it belonged to a man. But 70 years later, a new study revealed the truth. The researchers named the woman Zlatý kůň (“Zlatykunya” or “Golden Horse” in Czech) after the hill above the Czech cave where the remains were found.

The analysis also showed that approximately 3% of the woman's genome was Neanderthal genes. She probably belonged to an early generation of people who interbred with Neanderthals.

A CT scan was used to reconstruct her face. The task was complicated by the fact that some of the bones, including almost the entire left side of the face, were missing. They were replenished by means of computer simulation of the average statistical data of modern men and women.

During their work, scientists drew attention to the strong jaw of a woman, more typical of a male face. In addition, her endocranial region of the brain turned out to be larger than that of modern humans. This is because the genome probably had more similarities with Neanderthals than with modern humans.

As a result, the scientists came up with a realistic image of a woman with dark curly hair and brown eyes. However, the authors of the work note that much of it remains a mystery, so the resulting portrait may not accurately reflect the real appearance of the original.