Bronze Age women who suffered from back pain 4,000 years ago and Iron Age Pictish men who led lives of hard labor 1,500 years ago are among the ancient ancestors brought to life by dramatic facial restorations. I'm here.
Cutting-edge technology allows visitors to Scotland's new Perth Museum to meet four figures from modern-day Perthshire's past.
Scientists at the University of Aberdeen used ancient DNA, isotope and radiocarbon analysis and the latest advances in reconstruction forensics to analyze human bones in the museum's collection.
The tests have revealed new surprising discoveries about four very different people who lived in Perthshire over the past 2,000 years.
They include a 14th-century man, aged between 18 and 25 at the time of his murder, and a 16th-century nun from the medieval Cistercian convent of Elcho, who at some stage suffered a broken leg. He was probably limping. .
In the digital portraits, each figure moves with extraordinary realism, turning their heads to look at the onlooker.
If they were alive today, they wouldn't stand out in a crowd, the scientists said.
Professor Mark Oxenham, a bioarchaeology expert at the University of Aberdeen, said: observer This Bronze Age woman is said to have lived between 2200 and 2000 BC. “If you put your girlfriend in her everyday clothes now, no one will blink an eye.”
He added that the Pictish man, who lived between 400 and 600 AD, looked just like any “ordinary young man” you would find anywhere today.
The remains of a Bronze Age woman were discovered in 1962 at Rocklands Farm in Perthshire when a tractor broke into a burial chamber while plowing. She was approximately 5 feet tall and is believed to have been in her 30s or 40s at the time of her death. Scientific analysis revealed that she would have been suffering from back pain, and the trauma to her forehead had healed, suggesting some kind of accident.
The remains of a Pictish man were unearthed during construction work on the Tilted Bridge at Blair Atholl. In the 1980s. Analysis revealed that he had spent his childhood on the West Coast, perhaps in Ireland, and had endured years of grueling farm work, judging by the level of osteoarthritis that would be unthinkable for someone who died in his 40s. It became clear. He subsisted mainly on produce from his farm and is thought to have moved to Perthshire in his later years.
Radiocarbon tests on a possible murder victim found in Perth's Horsecross car park in the early 2000s suggest he lived between 1185 and 1290 AD.
He suffered severe injuries, including several broken ribs, and died a tragic death before being placed in a hastily dug hole.
Mr Oxenham said: “We don't know exactly what the blunt force trauma was. He could have been trampled by a horse or hit in the chest with something like a mace. He was basically thrown into a small hole. The way he was buried suggests a hasty cover-up.”
Dr Rebecca Crozier, senior lecturer in archeology at the University of Aberdeen, said portraits make people from the past “very relatable to us today” and advances in facial reconstruction techniques are making them increasingly authentic. He said it became. The portrait was created by forensics and facial reconstruction expert Chris Lynn.
New research and stories about these ancient peoples will be on permanent display alongside the Stone of Destiny in the new museum from March 30th.