Unprecedented 3D reconstruction of pre-Columbian crania from the Caribbean and South America
Unprecedented 3D reconstruction of pre-Columbian crania from the Caribbean and South America
Alfonso Benito Calvo, head of the Digital Mapping and 3D Analysis Laboratory at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) has participated in the 3D reconstructions of a representative selection of 13 pre-Columbian human crania specifically from Cuba and Peru, which are part of the osteological collection of the The Montané Anthropological Museum in Cuba.
The sample studied comprised crania with tabular oblique artificial deformation, annular deformation, and undeformed specimens. The 3D models generated were used to produce prints and 3D animated videos.
The deformed and undeformed crania were digitized with the Artec Space Spider structured blue light scanner, which created three-dimensional models based on the real samples. The resulting 3D models were used to produce 3D printed replicas and animated videos. “These 3D models of the Cuban pre-Columbian skulls have been made with microns precision,” says Alfonso Benito.
The 3D reconstruction of the crania will allow its precise systematic investigation and dissemination in different audiovisual media and online platforms, and they are also a perfect means to publicize the associated intangible resources, such as the experiences, rites and stories that surround these crania.
This study lead by Gizéh Rangel-de Lázaro (Natural History Museum in London and IPHES-URV) is published in the journal Virtual Archaeology Review, with the collaboration of researchers from CENIEH, University of Valladolid and The Montané Anthropological Museum in Cuba.
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Drones enable the first detailed mapping of the High Plateaus Basin in the Moroccan Atlas
Drones enable the first detailed mapping of the High Plateaus Basin in the Moroccan Atlas
The CENIEH has used this technology to assess how the landscape of this area in the Atlas chain has evolved, which is key to understanding human evolution in North Africa during the Quaternary
The Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) has led a paper just published in the Journal of Maps, according to which, with the help of drones, it has been possible to obtain high-resolution aerial images and topographies, fundamental to compiling the first detailed map of the High Plateaus Basin, a region in Eastern Morocco key to understanding human evolution in North Africa during the Quaternary.
“We used the drones from our Digital Mapping and 3D Analysis Laboratory to analyze how the landscape in this intramountain basin in the Atlas chain has evolved, and thus distinguish the different geological formations”, says the lead author of this work, Alfonso Benito Calvo, head of the Geomorphology and Formation Processes line of research at CENIEH.
In the zone studied, there are abundant geological materials on great plains marked by fluvial channels which led finally to the formation of shallow lakes and wetlands. From that moment, deep valleys began to be incised, leaving fluvial terraces and buttes, formed under arid conditions with frequent climatic changes.
“Numerous archaeological remains of different chronologies are preserved today in this geological record, indicating the great potential of the region for studying the archaeological history of North Africa from the Pliocene to the present day”, states Benito Calvo.
This work was conducted under the auspices of a Spanish-Moroccan project, directed by the IPHES (Instituto Catalán de Paleoecología Humana y Evolución Social), in Tarragona, and Mohammed I University (Oujda, Morocco), and has institutional support from the local and regional authorities of the Moroccan province of Jerada, the Fundación Palarq and the Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte.
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Press release from CENIEH
The landscape in the Pre-Pyrenees inhabited by Neanderthals
A CENIEH scientist analyzes the landscape in the Pre-Pyrenees inhabited by Neanderthals
The researcher Alfonso Benito Calvo, head of the Geomorphology and Formation Processes line of research at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH, is the lead author of a paper just published in the journal Quaternary Research, which analyzes the formation of the site of Roca dels Bous (Lleida, Spain), which was inhabited by Neanderthals, in relation to the evolution that took place of this landscape in the Pre-Pyrenees over the last 60,000 years.
In this paper, the processes that intervened during the Neanderthal occupation of this Mousterian site, lying in the gorge of the Segre River (Sant Llorenç de Montgai), were investigated using 3D geomorphological techniques based upon drones, as well as stratigraphic, statistical and Luminescence dating (OSL) techniques.
“The landscape we see today is very different from that inhabited by the Neanderthals. Roca dels Bous was not a vantage point overlooking the valley, as on the contrary, the data indicate that it lay next to the valley bottom, and the Neanderthals had the resources offered by the Segre River floodplain, which was wider than it is now, to hand”, explains Benito Calvo.
Reconstructing how the landscape in this zone evolved is key to understanding the Neanderthal occupation patterns in this territory, which served as a nexus between the rest of Europe and the Iberian Peninsula, by connecting the highlands of the Pyrenees with the Ebro Basin.
