Unmasking Our Six Ancient Maternal Ancestors
Paleoartists are resurrecting forgotten females with critical empathy
The Kennis brothers are fast-talking identical twins and self-admitted academic failures with indistinguishable mannerisms (and glasses) and one brilliant shared talent: raising the dead. This pair of paleoartists was recently summoned by Netflix to recreate the face of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman with an armature of over 200 fragments of her smashed skull.
May wonders never cease.
I had two thoughts while watching this unfold on Netflix’s recently released Secrets of the Neanderthals:
- If Neanderthals survived severe injuries, presumably with enough management of infection, why are they so filthy in the live reenactments?
- Whose dig do I have to shovel to become a paleoartist? DREAM JOB.
The Kennis & Kennis website is worth a visit if for no other reason than to enjoy their Glamour Shot approach, full of ancient smizes (eye smiling) and flirtation. At first, their creations made me laugh, but then I stopped myself — why should they? We’re so biased in under-presuming competence across the ancient world that we probably fail to realize just how expressive the long-dead could’ve been.
These days, the brothers are challenging that idea, and the result is deeply humanizing.
Especially when it comes to our Neanderthal ancestors. Yes, ancestors. When my mom swabbed for 23 & Me a few years ago, we were all tickled to discover that she contains more Neanderthal DNA than 99% of the platform’s members. She has absolutely zero back hair. But the Kennis brothers are making me think about Neanderthals like Shanidar Z a bit differently: less like an alien being and more like my many times great grandmother. Paleo-anthropologist Emma Pomeroy agrees, per Newsweek:
“Neanderthal skulls have huge brow ridges and lack chins, with a projecting midface that results in more prominent noses. But the recreated face suggests those differences were not so stark in life. It’s perhaps easier to see how interbreeding occurred between our species.”
With their portrait, the Kennis brothers are making a real scientific case that Shanidar Z was reasonably good-looking enough for male Homo sapiens to want to impregnate her — and archaeologists are adding to her profile. She was buried lying on her side with a stone possibly placed beneath her head — a bit like a pillow — and beside a tall vertical stone, which the documentary speculates could’ve been an ancient grave marker. Pomery says:
“As an older female, Shanidar Z would have been a repository of knowledge for her group, and here we are 75,000 years later, learning from her still.”
Looking into her eyes, that’s not so hard to imagine. But not all Neanderthal recreations are created equal.
It might take artists to help us really see our ancestors — and the impact on science could be critical.
Women of the Paleolithic Era
At 45,000 years old, Zlatý kůň is the oldest anatomically modern human to be genetically sequenced according to LiveScience.com. Discovered in Czechia, she was part of a population of early modern Homo sapiens likely to have mated with Neanderthals — a pretty sobering fact when you realize Neanderthals were still alive 30,000 years after Shanidar Z.
Graphics expert Cicero Moraes digitally constructed Zlatý kůň along with Mladeč 1, who was born 14,000 years later — after both Zlatý kůň’s people and the Neanderthals had gone extinct.
Mladeč 1 is a stone age teenager thought to be one of the oldest Homo sapiens discovered in Europe (circa 29,000 BC). A combination of her partial skull and 200 CT scans of other female skulls — prehistoric and modern — were used to digitally reconstruct her face for a 3D scan released by the Vienna Natural History Museum in 2021. You can play with it in this Smithsonian Magazine article.
For both stone age women, Moraes created two images: the first “more scientific” in grayscale with closed eyes, and the second “more subjective” with color, hair, eyebrows and open eyes.
I’m just seeing more Sinead O’Connor vs. less Sinead O’Connor.
But truly, if artistic license better enables scientists to envision a living being, perhaps the effect is actually “more scientific” after all. Especially since we’ve been underestimating the ancients for so long.
In recent years, scientists have had to shelve previous beliefs as new discoveries reveal just how similar the ancients were to modern humans. For example, it’d long been assumed that our direct ancestors were the only species to make tools, but last year a team of archaeologists published a study connecting a set of tools to our extinct cousins, Paranthropus — dating as far back as 2.9 millions years ago.
Another revelation came in Netlix’s Unknown: Cave of Bones last year, when fossil evidence suggested to archaeologists that 240,000 year old Homo naledi were baring their teeth not necessarily to scare — but to smile.
We’re so biased in under-presuming competence across the ancient world that we probably fail to realize just how expressive the long-dead could’ve been.
But despite such discoveries, scientists still have difficulty accepting who our “true” ancestors might be — and it often comes down to confusion over cosmetic similarities. A 2021 Smithsonian Magazine article interviewed archaeological scientist Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History on the subject:
“The fact of the matter is that all fossils before about 40,000 to 100,000 years ago contain different combinations of so called archaic and modern features. It’s therefore impossible to pick and choose which of the older fossils are members of our lineage or evolutionary dead ends.”
Given their relatively modern features, it‘s not too difficult to imagine what these two stone age women were capable of. And a recent book and documentary, Lady Sapiens: the Women in Prehistory, does just that — focusing on women’s economic and artistic roles dating back 10,000–40,000 years ago. The authors highlight a series of Palaeolithic etchings, which make the case that early mothers carried their babies on their backs to free their hands for small game hunting, fishing and foraging. They’ve even been brought to life in a collaboration with the video game Far Cry Primal, which included a pre-historic female character — although the effect is a bit Lara Croft. But I guess who’s to say her kind didn’t once dominate the planet?
Bronze Age Beaker Women
Fast forward 29,000 years to the Bronze age and meet the Upper Largie Woman (circa 3,000 BC). Swedish sculptor and archaeologist Oscar Nilsson reconstructed her using a 3D-printed scan of her upper skull, but had to rebuild her missing lower jaw and part of her cranium. Explaining his process, Nilsson is quoted in Smithsonian Magazine:
“For more than 100 years, there have been analyses made of tissue depth in the human face. If I know the woman is from Scotland and of normal weight, 30 years old, I can search charts and tables for the context.”
That said, archaeologists were unable to gather DNA from her skeleton, so some liberties had to be taken; which is perhaps why she’s been likened to Victoria Beckham by the Herald.
I think she’d take that compliment.
Sarah Kuta discusses the Upper Largie Woman in Smithsonian Magazine:
“She may have been part of the Beaker culture, known for making pieces of distinctive pottery shaped like bells. This culture likely began in Central Europe before moving to present-day Britain around 2400 B.C.E. Beaker people quickly dominated, replacing the Neolithic communities and other groups living there.”
Which is perhaps how, three-hundred years later (circa 1,700 BC), fellow Beaker person, Ava, came to exist. Also discovered in Scotland, Ava’s skull was digitally adapted by forensic artist Hew Morrison, who drew on modern average tissue depths, a large database of images, as well as complex dental calculations. He told the BBC:
“Normally, when working on a live, unidentified person’s case not so much detail would be given to skin tone, eye or hair colour and hair style as none of these elements can be determined from the anatomy of the skull. So, creating a facial reconstruction based on archaeological remains is somewhat different in that a greater amount of artistic license can be allowed.”
It was long believed that Beaker immigrations to Scotland were led by men, but researchers discovered in 2022 that the ones who specifically landed in Orkney were predominantly women. They speculate to The Past Magazine that it’s possible travel for marriage could’ve been the purpose, and perhaps it was the only way for women to settle in economically desirable Orkney.
This could explain why Ava could pass for a modern northern European woman.
Viking Warrior Women
The face of Viking Shield Maiden of Solør (circa 1,000 AD) also tells a tale, but one much less conventional.
Initially thought to be male, she was found buried with a shield, horse skeleton, sword, spear, battle-ax and arrows. DNA analysis quickly proved otherwise. The University of Dundee digitally rebuilt her skull to include the wound that might’ve caused her death; the grisly recreation can be viewed here.
Viking Shield Maidens have become mainstreamed lately, thanks to the popular Amazon series, but history still regards them with some suspicion. The World History Encyclopedia qualifies their existence in a 2019 article — somewhat misleadingly entitled, “Ten Legendary Female Viking Warriors” — by stating: “The shieldmaiden was allegedly a woman who took up arms and armor and fought in battle alongside men.”
Author Joshua J. Mark argues the majority of scholars believe there were no female Viking warriors because it would have been too anti-Viking:
“Even though [Viking] women shared equal rights with men (they could own land, initiate divorce, serve as clergy, and run their own businesses), their sphere of influence was largely domestic. Women took care of the home, the elderly relatives, and the children and were unlikely to be tolerated slipping those responsibilities to join men in battle. Norse literature and mythology, however, depicts a number of legendary women who do precisely that. […] [But] the sagas, especially, are considered unreliable as they often relate magical or mystical events which cannot be corroborated.”
I find his justification curious. Not only because it flies in the literal face of the likely battle-scarred Viking woman with the military style burial, but because she’s not the only female Viking badass that’s been discovered.
Meet my own maternal ancestor: the Birka Woman of Haplogroup T2b.
Also assumed to be male when she was first excavated in the 1880s, Birka Woman was found in Birka, Sweden buried with a spear, axe, arrows, shields, two horses and game pieces. She’s now believed by her researchers to be a celebrated Viking military strategist and warrior.
According to 23 & Me, she and I are both descendants of a European woman who lived 10,000 years ago, along with three percent of 23 & Me members…
So maybe that includes you, too.
And maybe someday soon, with the help of talented paleoartists, we’ll see her face. Like these six forgotten females, she might beckon us to open our minds to the women of the ancient past whose lives have gone, but whose bones can still tell their stories.
Happy Mother’s Day and thank you for clapping! Follow me for more cultural excavations.
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