Near a cave in Gibraltarian Woman, investigators discovered a human skull in 1996. Many fish, bird, and animal bones and carved flint items revealed their age. So they ‘resurrected’ it.
When it’s found in 1996 researchers couldn’t get much information from the skull. Because of Gibraltar’s humid environment. A meaningful genetic material was unlikely to be extracted since DNA analysis was new. The damaged skull, making examination more difficult.
So we had no chance of duplicating Calpeia’s physiognomy — scientists called her after Gibraltar’s classical name, Mons Calpe. Later decades saw major advances in the study of ancient DNA. It reports in Science in 2019 after Harvard Medical School researchers recovered viable samples of ancient DNA from 271 Spanish, Gibraltar, and Portuguese residents.
The Gibraltar National Museum then recreated Calpeia’s visage. They scanned her fractured bones and used 3D cloning and restoration software to reconstruct her jaw.
The researchers spent six months combining scan data with genetic analysis to produce a remarkable, realistic image of her.
The DNA research revealed that the skull belonged to a woman who lived approximately 5400 B.C., millennia after the Gibraltar Neanderthals died out. Calpeia had a fair complexion, a slim build, and black hair and eyes. She was also lactose intolerant, which shows that dairy production was not part of her culture.
Calpeia existed in the late Neolithic, some 7,500 years ago, when agriculture and cattle farming replaced the traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Her cranial sutures (the fibrous connections connecting the bones of the skull) imply she was an adult between 25 and 40 years old. To reconstruct Calpeia’s skull, scientists used a scanned replica of her skull.
Now for the fun part: The study team was ecstatic when the DNA analysis indicated that just 10% of Calpeia’s genome originated from the Iberian Peninsula population. In Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), farmers had many genes that resulted in dark eyes and pale skin. Hunter-gatherers in central and western Europe had dark complexions and light eyes.
Calpeia’s DNA contains several Anatolian components, indicating recent Anatolian origins. Her forefathers or parents most likely sailed from Anatolia to Gibraltar.
Calpeia’s voyage westward by land would have taken years, if not decades. Her family’s DNA would have mingled with local groups, making Calpeia’s genetics more diversified.
Other genomes from Sardinian people have shown a significant percentage of Anatolian genes, supporting the hypothesis that Anatolians explored the west rather than the Mediterranean.