3D printing helps scientists recreate face of Neolithic girl who lived 9,000 years ago

An interdisciplinary team of medical and archeological specialists recently collaborated to reconstruct the face of a teenage girl who lived roughly 9,000 years ago. The reconstruction, which relied on 3D scanning and 3D printing technologies, suggests that teens from the period looked quite different to teenagers nowadays.

In 1993, the skull of a girl was uncovered in the Theopetra cave in Greece—a location that has provided archaeologists with many insights into how humans lived up to 130,000 years ago. The skull in question is said to date back at least 9,000 years and is believed to have belonged to a girl of about 15 to 18 years of age. (The scientists have named her Avgi, which means Dawn in English.)

Though the skull has not provided many answers as to Avgi’s lifestyle or the cause of her early death, researchers have put the fossil to good use by recreating what the young woman would have looked like.

The recreation process consisted of a number of steps and required input from various professionals, including an endocrinologist, orthopedist, neurologist, pathologist, and radiologist. Orthondist Manolis Papagrigorakis led the effort in partnership with Oscar Nilsson, a Swedish archeologist and sculptor who specializes in reproducing the faces and facial features of ancient humans.