Scientists reconstruct faces of Indus Valley people

In a first, scientists have generated an accurate facial representation of the Indus Valley Civilisation people by reconstructing the faces of two of the 37 individuals who were found buried at the 4,500-year-old Rakhigarhi cemetry.
A multi-disciplinary team of 15 scientists and academics from six different institutes of South Korea, UK and India, applied craniofacial reconstruction (CFR) technique using computed tomography (CT) data of two of the Rakhigarhi skulls, to recreate their faces. The case study, led by W J Lee and Vasant Shinde and supported in part by a grant of the National Geographic Society, has been published in a widely reputed journal, Anatomical Science International.

"The report is very significant because till date, we have had no idea about how Indus Valley people looked. But now we have got some idea about their facial features," Shinde, who led the Rakhigarhi archaeological project, told TOI. Located in Haryana, Rakhigarhi is one of the largest Indus Valley sites.

It was difficult to establish the physical appearance so far because "Indus Valley cemeteries and graves have not been investigated sufficiently to date" and "the anthropological data obtained from the skeletons still fall short" for recreating morphology of the Indus Valley people. Also, except for "the Priest King, a famous figurine found at Mohenjodaro," there is no advanced or developed art from the Indus Valley civilisation that could lead to an accurate representation of the morphology of its population.

"The CFR technology generated faces of the two Rakhigarhi skulls, therefore, is a major breakthrough," Shinde, a professor at Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, said. Going by the 3-D video representation of the faces, the two individuals of the Rakhigarhi settlement appeared to have Caucasian features with hawk-shaped and Roman noses. The study, however, cautioned against drawing any generic conclusions.