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Kennewick Man bearing many of the 18 major
muscles that Gerasimov-style artists fit to a face.
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Meet Kennewick Man
Part 2 | Back to Part 1
The Gerasimov method aims to produce a very specific image, one as close to
that of the deceased as possible. Practitioners of this school, who tend to
have an extensive background in osteology and anatomy, begin by closely
studying the bones of the face, and observing asymmetries in bone structure and
variations in the development of muscle markings. These are clues to the
personal characteristics of the dead. Heavily used muscles, for example, leave
prominent spurs or ridges in facial bone and show what expressions the person
most often held.
Next, after placing the tissue thickness markers, the Gerasimov-style artist
fashions 18 major muscles from clay and places them on the face according to
their standard thickness in human beings. These include the oval sphincters
that surround the mouth and eyes, the massive muscles that close the jaws, and
the delicate muscles that manipulate the corners of the mouth and wrinkle the
brows and nose. Once these are in place, the face begins to take on a human
look, albeit a macabre one. Using the muscles now as a secondary
superstructure, the artist lays a thin clay "skin" over the face to the height
of the tissue markers, taking into account the topography created by the
musculature. The resultant face is immediately quite life-like and gives the
artist less latitude in crafting the finished face.
Jim Chatters (partly hidden) and Thomas McClelland put the finishing touches on
their creation.
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As with the American school, the sculptor ages and lines the face following
advice from the team's scientific members, taking cues from the asymmetries and
markings noted in the initial inspection of the skull. In the case of Kennewick
Man, evidence for severe injuries suggested that the man lived many of his
40-plus years in frequent if not chronic pain. Prominent muscle markings above
the chin and beneath the eye sockets confirmed this, revealing a face held in
an expression of determined endurance. For this reason, our approximation of
Kennewick Man, which we created in about three days using the Gerasimov method,
shows the weariness of a middle-aged man in perpetual discomfort.
Like the American method, the Gerasimov approach has proved useful for forensic
identification, but its best application is for approximating the appearance of
the long dead. Forensic anthropologists ordinarily rely on this method for
recreations of our earlier hominid ancestors. Well-known examples include the
Homo erectus created by museum artist John Gurche of the Denver Museum
of Natural History and the Neanderthal approximation crafted by Gary Sawyer, a
preparator at the American Museum of Natural History. Because we have no
artistic standards for how these hominids looked, approximators must produce
them with as much scientific rigor as possible.
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Nearly complete, Kennewick Man shows a middle-aged man in chronic
discomfort.
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As well founded in science as they may be, facial approximations, as their name
suggests, are not literal portraits of the dead. No means yet exist for doing
that. Nevertheless, approximations constitute the only way we have of gazing at
our early ancestors and thereby seeing them as vital beings like ourselves.
James C. Chatters is an affiliate research associate professor at Central
Washington University and owner of an archeological and paleoecological
consulting firm in Richland, Washington. The anthropologist who recovered and
first studied Kennewick Man, he is the author of a forthcoming book on how that
discovery is changing our image of the first Americans (to be published by
Simon and Schuster in early 2001).
Does Race Exist? |
Meet Kennewick Man
Claims for the Remains |
The Dating Game |
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