Scientists Reconstruct the Face of a 3,000-Year-Old Man From Ecuador
Researchers have digitally reconstructed the face of a man who lived in the Ecuadorian Andes more than 3,000 years ago and presented the reconstruction to people living in the region today. Working with researchers at the Universidad Nacional de Chimborazo (UNACH), British forensic anthropologist Christopher Rynn reconstructed the face using the skull of a man […]
British forensic anthropologist Christopher Rynn has digitally reconstructed the face of a 3,000-year-old man who lived in the Ecuadorian Andes. The reconstruction, named Punín-2, was created using the skull of the man, who was an Indigenous American hunter-gatherer. Rynn described the reconstruction as "a portrait of their actual ancestor."
Punín-2 was discovered in 1974 in a ravine near Punin, Ecuador’s Chimborazo region. He was estimated to be around 50 years old at the time of his death. While a companion bone fragment provided a radiocarbon age of about 3,190 years, researchers plan to date the skull itself for more precise dating. The site's geology complicated earlier interpretations, as it contained much older Pleistocene fossils.
However, a 1980 reassessment of the original Punin cranium placed the human remains within the range of early Indigenous American populations and the Holocene.
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