The oldest human face has been reconstructed for the first time.
The reconstruction revealed the face of a man described as “strong and calm”.
It was created by Brazilian graphics expert Cicero Morris, who used a 3D scan of a skull to recreate a human.
The fossils come from the remains of Jebel Erhoud, named after the place in Morocco where they were found – and prove that humans, or Homo sapiens, evolved 100,000 years earlier than thought.
They also proved that our ancestors raised the “Cradle of Humanity” in E Africa and spread across the continent thousands of years before previous evidence suggested.
Explaining the process, Mr Morris said: “Initially, I scanned the skull in 3D using data provided by researchers at the Max Planck Institute.
“I then proceeded with the facial approximation, which involved crossing several methods, such as anatomical deformation.”
The technique involved mapping a 3D skull diagram onto a “donor” skull prototype, based on an adult male with a low body mass index.
Mr Morris said he chose to give the skull a male face based on the skull's “strong and masculine” features.
Further data from modern humans were used to estimate soft tissue thickness, and possible projections of the nose and other facial structures.
“The final face is an interpolation of all that data, creating two groups of images, one objective, with more technical elements, without hair and in grayscale,” Mr. Morris said.
Without hair and skin discoloration
“The other is artistic, with skin and hair color.”
Along with hair and skin pigments
The skull itself is actually a composite of different fossils, completely reconstructed in what the designer said was “excellent and quite coherent, anatomically speaking”.
The Max Planck Institute, which provided the data from the skull, said the Jebel Erhoud remains had “a modern-looking face and teeth, and a large but ancient-looking brain case.”
Genetic changes affecting brain connectivity, organization and development have transformed the brain case into the skulls we all have today, the institute said.
Morris agreed and compared the Skhul V skull to that of ancient Homo sapiens.
“The Jebel Erhoud skull has some features that are consistent with Neanderthals or Heidelbergians (extinct human relatives).
“It is very interesting to observe the differences and similarities between the structures of these skulls and faces over thousands of years.”
Fossils from the Jebel Erhoud site were initially discovered in the 1960s and estimated to be around 40,000 years old before scientists revisited the site and new techniques revealed the bones to be around 300,000 years old.
Jean-Jacques Hublin, Max Planck Institute, said at the time: “We thought that East Africa was the cradle of mankind 200,000 years ago.
“What we actually found was that Homo sapiens had already spread across the African continent by about 300,000 years ago.”
The discovery eclipses the oldest remains of Homo sapiens found at Omo Kibash in Ethiopia, which is 195,000 years old.