Reconstructing the face of a person who lived 50,000 years ago

A team of archaeologists and 3D designers reconstructed the face of an individual belonging to the now extinct species Homo floresiensis, genus Homo (Human genus).

Nicknamed "The Hobbit" because of its short stature, Homo floresiensis was an ancient human species that stood about 1.1m tall. They appeared on Earth at the same time as modern humans, Homo sapiens , and are thought to have gone extinct about 50,000 years ago.

Reconstruction of the face of Homo floresiensis. (Photo: Cicero Moraes)

The bones of Homo floresiensis were first discovered in 2003, on the island of Flores, Indonesia. Since then, scientists have discovered more than a dozen other specimens on the island, but much remains unknown about this mysterious species.

In a new study, Brazilian 3D designer Cicero Moraes and Italian archaeologists Luca Bezzi and Alessandro Bezzi studied the skull of Homo floresiensis to reconstruct its face, IFL Science reported on June 29. They used the shape and structure of the skull to estimate how soft tissue adhered to bone. The study was based on scans of LB1, a nearly complete skeleton of Homo floresiensis from Liang Bua Cave on Flores Island.

Reconstructing a face based on a skull alone is not an exact science and requires a bit of an art. This is because skull shape can provide only limited information about how soft tissues, such as muscle and fat, are actually distributed in the face. Furthermore, it is not known for sure what color or how much hair Homo floresiensis had, so some features must be based on educated guesses.

Moraes describes some differences between Homo floresiensis and modern humans. "It's possible that their noses were not as high as modern humans, their mouths were slightly more protruding than ours, and their brain volume was significantly smaller ," he says.

To reconstruct the face of an extinct species, the team used CT scans from both humans and chimpanzees. "We edited both to match the skull structure of Homo floresiensis and added data to show what this person's face looked like ," Moraes said.

This is the first time the face of the 'Hobbit' has been reconstructed using data from both humans and chimpanzees. The new research was published in the e-book OrtogOnline in early June.