USM team puts a face to prehistoric ‘Penang Woman’

 

USM researcher Shariful Idzwan Sahidan showing the reconstructed face of the 5,000-year-old Penang Woman found during an excavation in Kepala Batas. (Bernama pic)

GEORGE TOWN: Researchers have finally given a face to the prehistoric “Penang Woman”, a 5,000-year-old human skeleton unearthed in 2017 during an excavation in Guar Kepah, Kepala Batas.

The face sketch was completed on July 5, using the forensic facial approximation method.

USM researcher Shaiful Idzwan Shahidan, one of seven USM researchers who worked on the project, said Penang Woman is estimated to have died when she was 30 to 35 years old.

“She was about 150cm tall. Tests on the skeletal tissue concluded that she consumed a lot of protein, from seafood or rivers.”

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Based on the Penang Woman’s face, he estimated that she was of mixed descent from the Australomelanesoid and Mongoloid groups of early humans. The Australomelanesoid, or Australo-Melanesians, are said to include the aboriginal peoples of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

“This is an important clue that shows that more than 5,000 years ago, there was a mixing of two groups living at that time in the Guar Kepah area,” he said.

Work on the profile was carried out by the USM team working with forensic facial reconstruction expert Cicero Moraes from Brazil. The team was led by Dr Johari Yap, a lecturer at the USM School of Dental Sciences.

Last year, the same group had successfully produced a sketch of how the Perak Man would have looked like, using the same 3D virtual reconstruction method.

Shaiful said it took him three to four months to get the dimensions of the Penang Woman’s face by going through several processes, including doing a computerised tomography scan (CT scan) at the USM Hospital in Kubang Kerian, Kelantan.

Shaiful said he then used the FFA method to identify and reconstruct the Penang Woman’s face. A drawing of her face was completed on July 5.

He described Penang Woman as a priceless and very significant heritage object for the Guar Kepah archaeological site. The skeleton is now kept at USM in Penang.

“The solitary skeleton was found under Bukit Kerang, which is a mound of shells about seven metres high, by Malaysian researchers. We need to preserve it for the sake of our common heritage,” he said.

He hoped that 41 other skeletons found in Guar Kepah which were taken to the Netherlands for further studies, would be brought back by the state government to Penang for research purposes.

Guar Kepah is the first prehistoric site in the peninsula to be excavated for study since 1863.

An article on the facial reconstruction was published early this month in the Journal of Applied Sciences. - FMT