Now, paleo-anthropological artists have used that hunk of skull to create a lifelike bust of Krijn, including the bulge above his right eyebrow where the tumor sat. .
"Luckily, it's a very distinctive piece," Adrue Kennis, a paleo-anthropological artist with Kennis & Kennis Reconstructions, said of the skull specimen in a translated video created by the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO) in the Netherlands, which is showing Krijn's bust in a new exhibit.When Krijn was alive, between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago, he lived in Doggerland, a vast swath of land between the United Kingdom and continental Europe, which is now submerged beneath the North Sea.A 2009 study in the Journal of Human Evolution revealed a few details about Krijn: The young man was highly carnivorous, but his body didn't show any evidence of seafood in his diet, according to an analysis of the isotopes, or element variants, of carbon and nitrogen found in his skull.
The Kennis brothers recreated the Neanderthal's features by relying not only on the skull specimen but also other Neanderthal skulls, as well as previous data on Neanderthal eye, hair and skin color.
The new bust is the latest from their studio, which includes other early human recreations, including one of Ötzi the Iceman mummy, who lived about 5,300 years ago in the Alps.
A menagerie of animals, including mammoths, lions, woolly rhinoceroses, reindeer and horses used to live on the Doggerland steppe, but it was very cold, meaning that Krijn likely had a challenging life, according to an RMO statement.In addition to Krijn's remains, scientists sifting through the North Sea sediments found several middle Paleolithic artifacts, including small hand axes and pointed stones known as Levallois flakes.
She edits Life's Little Mysteries and reports on general science, including archaeology and animals