Archaeogenetics and reconstructions of people in prehistoric Europe
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 19/06/2023

Tom Booth (Francis Crick Institute London)

Recent politically charged reactions to facial reconstructions of Cheddar Man and the Whitehawk Woman illustrate the salience of how we depict people who lived in prehistoric Europe. How to depict physical characteristics, particularly pigmentation (skin, eye and hair colour) of ancient people has been a recurrent question in the development of archaeological reconstructions. Until recently, in the absence of firm evidence for pigmentation characteristics in ancient individuals and populations, the default approach was to assume populations who inhabited these regions in prehistory were like those who predominantly inhabit the same regions today, and that both groups would have exhibited similar characteristics. The recent ascendance of archaeogenetics has mean that we now have some evidential basis for inferring pigmentation characteristics of ancient individuals and populations, as well as ways of directly testing assumptions of population continuity. However, the answers that archaeogenetic techniques provide are not straightforward and introduce further complications to an already fraught and contested area of archaeological reconstruction. Here, I will discuss what recent archaeogenetic results mean for the depiction of people in archaeological reconstructions of prehistoric Europe and outline the new challenges that have emerged because of these developments.