Scientists recreated the face of a 17-year-old girl who lived on Earth 31 thousand years ago

The skull, which was found in the Mladeč cave in the modern Czech Republic back in 1881, brought scientists an unexpected surprise. They had initially qualified the object, called Mladeč 1, as the remains of a man who lived approximately 31,000 years ago, but the latest research methods revealed that it was a young woman and also allowed them to recreate her appearance.

According to Live Sience, the woman was approximately 17 years old and lived during the Orignacian period, a segment of the Upper Paleolithic that lasted from 40,000 to 19,000 thousand years ago. The researchers' conclusions on this matter are published in a new online book entitled "A Forensic Approach to the Study of the Mladech 1 Skull".

To recreate the appearance of the person to whom the skull belonged, the scientists used information collected during archaeological excavations in the 19th century, as well as forensic facial reconstructions made by researchers in the 1930s. They combined them with the results of modern tomography to digitize the skull to facilitate the work.

Since Mladech 1 is missing a lower jaw, the scientists also used average statistics and CT scan projections of approximately 200 modern humans. They did not limit themselves to the Caucasian race and analyzed data from Africans and Asians.

Once the full-fledged skull model was ready, the authors of the study applied a series of soft tissue thickness markers to it, which were distributed over it, and got an approximate face.