Two men who lived around 2,500 years ago in what is now southern India have been brought to life in new digital reconstructions — and research into their remains is revealing secrets about their mysterious civilization.
The realistic facial models are based on two skulls discovered at a burial site known as Kondagai, located in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Kumaresan Ganesan, the head of the Department of Genetics at Madurai Kamaraj University who was involved with the analysis of human remains found at Kondagai, told Live Science.
Kondagai is thought to be the burial ground of a nearby archaeological site called Keeladi, which researchers think was home to a sophisticated urban civilization dating to around 580 B.C. This culture had brick houses with tiled roofs, traded with far-away regions, wrote in an ancient form of the Tamil script, and used relatively advanced technologies such as sophisticated water management systems, Ganesan said.
The first traces of Keeladi were identified by the Archaeological Survey of India in 2013, and only a small portion of the ancient urban settlement and its associated burial ground have been excavated to date.
By analyzing ancient DNA extracted from the skulls and other human remains found at Kondagai, Ganesan and his team are attempting to learn more about the enigmatic inhabitants of Keeladi.
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Bringing the two skulls to “life”
The two skulls were excavated in 2021. Researchers found the remains inside burial urns, dozens of which have been uncovered at the site so far, Ganesan said. The people of Keeladi buried their dead in these urns alongside grave goods, including jewelry, pottery and food offerings, research has shown.
An anatomical analysis by another scientist suggested that the men were between the ages of 50 and 60 when they died. Their causes of death are still unknown.
To recreate the appearance of the individuals, the researchers took CT scans of the skulls to create virtual 3D models of them, which they then sent to Face Lab in the U.K., a research unit that specializes in the reconstruction of faces.
“These [reconstructed] models can help us to understand people from the past and allow us to compare ourselves to our ancestors,” Caroline Wilkinson, director of Face Lab at Liverpool John Moores University in the U.K., which…
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