You can view the virtually reconstructed face of a woman who lived about 5,700 years ago in what is now Malaysia, now that researchers have put a face to a person whose full identity remains a mystery.
A team of archaeologists from the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) discovered the skeleton, which they dubbed the "Penang woman," during a 2017 dig at Guar Kepah, a Neolithic site located in Penang, in northwest Malaysia. It was one of 41 skeletons exhumed from the site over multiple excavations. Radiocarbon dating of shells found scattered around the woman's remains revealed that she lived during the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, which spanned from 8,000 to 3,300 B.C. in the region.
Using CT (computed tomography) scans of the body's "almost complete" skull, as well as 3D imagery of modern-day Malaysians, study co-researcher Cicero Moraes, a Brazilian graphics expert, worked alongside USM researchers to create a facial approximation of the woman, who is believed to have lived until about 40 years old, an estimate based on dental wear and a cranial suture closure.
