Having already shown off a little of O.D. Nilsson’s work, I thought I’d carry that momentum forward with a little something for you all. While not strictly a paleo-artist, or even primarily, he does some of the most lifelike reconstructions I’ve ever seen, and is an excellent resource for Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Homo sapiens. So take a look, if it’s no bother.
As a sample of his versatility, these really do show off his skill. Naturally, almost all of these are far more recent than actually suits my tastes, but don’t let that hold you back from appreciating them. I’ll be putting together a separate collection for the Mesolithic Greek girl Avgi later.
Here, you can catch a glimpse of his process, and I do believe the results speak for themselves. Certainly, this is an excellent approximation of a living human with no notable flaws. Perhaps by specializing on Homo sapiens, he has managed to master the craft with a more well understood subject matter.
Perhaps my favorite of these lot is his take on Cro-Magnon 1, a face I’d recognize anywhere, though the Ditchling Road Man has a certain charm. I would share a complaint in regard to the Whitehawk Woman, as Brighton Museums, the commissioner, claims her pigment should be close to someone from North Africa, the Southern Mediterranean, or the Near East, and those populations simply aren’t quite this dark as even a cursory google search would confirm. From their description, she should be at least a notable category paler than Cro-Magnon 1.
North African/Near Eastern sorts just don’t get the best treatment when it comes to reconstructions, it seems. I’ll almost certainly be sharing how pale Daynes made one of hers later, which manages to be quite a bit more egregious.
However, I digress. The chosen coloration for Cro-Magnon 1 is more than plausible, likely being a fairly accurate depiction of the man overall, give or take a few tumors. I do like how well-groomed his beard and hair are, as opposed to the wild manes we see in many depictions. His well-tailored furs help contribute to this overall dignified presentation as a respectable human being.
When it comes to the Neanderthal woman, however, I must note a certain apparent contradiction. She’s presented as being pale as the modern European, despite genetic studies revealing no such thing. Certainly, they do seem to have possessed a few pigment reduction alleles, but many of those were passed down to ancient modern Europeans as well. It seems odd to give such qualities special consideration in Neanderthals or even to exaggerate them, while ignoring them in ancient Homo sapiens or exaggerating things in the reverse.
Overall, I honestly doubt that modern Europeans are the best model for the soft tissue of Neanderthals, as they seem to have been used here, since East Asians have a similar or greater amount of such ancestry. Even the supposed Neanderthal “red hair gene” is chiefly found among distinctly black haired Taiwanese Aborigines. Truth be told, they were probably very much their own population and not a crude prototype of any extant group.
Still, such is the state of the art, with all the current biases to be expected. It’s far from the worst place the field has ever been. Whatever my quibbles, there is no doubt Oscar Nilsson has done a wonderful job with what he’s been given.
—The Curator
Artist: O.D. Nilsson
Species: Homo sapiens & Homo neanderthalensis
Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/9705968/3d-sculptures-ancient-faces-oscar-nilsson/
The Early Man Gallery 