UK: Experts Reconstruct Face of 1,300-Year-Old Anglo-Saxon Girl

Facts

• The face of a girl who died more than 1.3K years ago and whose skeleton was found buried on a wooden bed with a gold and garnet cross on her chest at Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, UK, has been facially reconstructed by forensic artist Hew Morrison.¹
• The ancient Anglo-Saxon girl died at the age of 16 and was buried in the village of Trumpington between AD 650 and AD 680. The facial reconstruction shows she had pale skin, a petite nose, strong cheekbones, and one eye slightly lower than the other.²
• While Morrison couldn't be sure what her exact eye and hair color were without DNA analysis, he was able to create an estimate by using measurements of the woman’s skull and tissue depth data for Caucasian females.³
• Analysis of her bones and teeth found that she was probably born in the Alps near Southern Germany before moving to Cambridgeshire at some point after she turned seven. Dr. Sam Leggett of Cambridge University said that her "proportion of protein dropped," having eaten "more meat and dairy products" in Germany.¹
• Leggett said, "It seems that she was part of an elite group of women who probably travelled [sic] from mainland Europe," prompting the question of whether such women were "political brides" or "brides of Christ" due to the presence of the Christian cross in the burial.²
• The Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology will host the facial reconstruction alongside the "Trumpington Cross." The burial is one of only 18 found in the UK, and the cross is only one of five of its kind discovered in Britain. She was likely one of the kingdom's earliest Christian converts.³

Sources: ¹BBC News, ²Daily Mail, and ³University of Cambridge.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by National Geographic. The Trumpington burial is only the latest in a years-long series of facial reconstructions reviving 40K years of English ancestry. From Neanderthal women and early modern men to a 5.6K-year-old Neolithic woman and the even older Cheddar Man, scientists and digital artists have given us access to unbelievably accurate depictions of people long forgotten. Moreover, these reconstructions not only give us a glimpse into ancient societies as a whole but to the lives of distinct individuals of those times.
• Narrative B, as provided by Ancient Origins. Despite the scientific and artistic marvels of ancient facial reconstructions, the two distinct fields are still at odds with one another. While scientists can provide incredibly accurate biological data, they can't produce the artistry needed to capture the interest of the general public; and while artists help with that, they are no experts in the biological realities of ancient human beings. If we are to continue advancing in such archaeological endeavors, both sides must accept that neither will be perfect, but the educational end goal is the same.