|
|
Meet Kennewick Man
by Jim Chatters
Rarely do the ravages of time allow us to gaze directly upon the faces of
our remote predecessors. Except for those few who have been frozen in the
arctic, pickled in the peat bogs of Northern Europe, or sculpted by their
skilled contemporaries, all we have of earlier peoples' visages are their bare,
often fragmentary skulls. These skulls, however, hold valuable clues to the
physiognomy of the dead. The superstructure on which the soft tissues of the
face hung during life, each provides a map of the face it once supported.
Facial-reconstruction artists can read this map and produce an approximation of
the deceased's appearance.
Forensic scientists and others conduct facial approximation for two quite
distinct but related purposes: to identify the recently dead so that they can
be reunited with their kin, and to give the people of today a glimpse of our
forebears as they might have appeared in life. Either way, facial approximation
is a closely integrated blending of science and art, the result of a fruitful
collaboration between scientists and sculptors. In the NOVA film "Mystery of
the First Americans," for example, sculptor Thomas McClelland and I produced Kennewick Man's
image, while artist Sharon Long and anthropologist Douglas Owsley
created the approximations of the Spirit Cave mummy. The best known
facial-approximation team is led by Richard Neave of the University of
Manchester, England, who, with John Prag, co-authored the book Making Faces:
Using Forensic and Archeological Evidence (Texas A&M University Press,
1997). Neave's team includes not only a medical artist and archeologist, but
also specialists in medicine, dentistry, and genetics.
A model of the Kennewick
skull (left) and the model with marker pegs in place (right).
|
|
Such teams fashion approximations either sculpturally or by computer.
Sculptural methods such as those documented in the NOVA film allow the artist a
freer hand than computer techniques. Specialists using the sculptural approach
belong to two schools, which I will call the Gerasimov and American schools.
(The Gerasimov method was developed by the late Russian paleontologist Mikhail
Gerasimov.)
Both schools follow similar basic protocols. Practitioners begin with a skull
or, in the case of ancient specimens, a model of a skull, and, at standard
locations on its surface, place a set of pegs cut according to average tissue
thicknesses. These thicknesses vary according to the ancestry and health of the
individual and differ for males and females; people of emaciated, average, or
obese condition; and Europeans (or white Americans), Africans (African
Americans), or Asians (Japanese). (Experts have not yet developed measurements
of average tissue thicknesses for other peoples.) The artist chooses these
thicknesses according to information the anthropologist provides based on clues
gleaned from the skeleton and any associated clothing and/or preserved soft
tissue.
|
Jim Chatters carefully places clay onto the
burgeoning face of Kennewick Man.
|
With the markers in place, the artist centers the eyes in the sockets and
roughs out the size of the nose and mouth. The sculptor determines the profile
of the nose by one of two means. One approach, used primarily by the American
school, estimates the projection of the nose at three times the length of a
bony spur located beneath the nasal opening in the skull. The width of the
nostril wings is a set distance from the lateral edges of the nasal openings,
six millimeters for Europeans and Asians and eight millimeters for
Africans. The Gerasimov school, as practiced by Neave's team, creates
the outline of the nose by extending one line from the bridge of the nose and a
second line from the floor of the nasal opening, and then rounding their point
of intersection to make the tip of the nose. They estimate nose width as 1.67
times the width of the nasal opening. The width of the mouth is either the
distance between the inner edges of the irises in the eyes or the distance
between the lateral edges of the canine teeth—measurements that are typically
very close to the same.
The schools differ most in how they place tissue on the face. The American
school relies heavily on the skill of the artist and less on the underlying
structure of the skull. The artist first connects tissue-thickness markers with
walls of clay pressed against the skull, tapering each bar so that its height
is even with the markers at both ends. This creates an open, grid-like pattern.
The artist then fills the spaces between the grid lines with clay, and a
mannequin-like face begins to take shape. Finally, the artist uses personal
experience and input from the scientific members of the team to humanize the
face and decide what eye-form and lip characteristics the person should have.
In the hands of a skilled artist such as Sharon Long, this approach has proven
highly effective, particularly as an aid to identification of the recently
dead.
Part of the method's effectiveness in the forensic realm lies in the
nonspecific appearance that it produces. When the police broadcast faces
approximated in this manner, they are likely to stimulate a large number of
responses from people missing friends or loved ones. From this large pool of
possible identities, the authorities have a good chance of determining the
actual identity of the deceased. If the face looked like only one particular
individual, the police might get fewer calls and may never identify the
subject.
Continue: The Gerasimov school's very specific image
Does Race Exist? |
Meet Kennewick Man
Claims for the Remains |
The Dating Game |
Resources
Transcript |
Site Map |
Mystery of the First Americans Home
Editor's Picks |
Previous Sites |
Join Us/E-mail |
TV/Web Schedule
About NOVA |
Teachers |
Site Map |
Shop |
Jobs |
Search |
To print
PBS Online |
NOVA Online |
WGBH
© | Updated November 2000
|
|
|