Recoveries with Ice Cream Man Technique
The technique for reconstructing "Ötzi's" skull made of synthetic resin, developed at the Innsbruck University Hospital, was used in collaboration with Horst Seidler, Professor at the University of Vienna, to reconstruct famous skulls from early human history. Until now, fossil skulls could only be judged by their external morphology. In the Department of Radiology II of the Innsbruck University Hospital, the skull of "Ötzi" was reproduced under the direction of Prof. Dieter zur Nedden.
According to Seidler and zur Nedden, three-dimensional copies of skulls are made with the aid of transparent plastic during stereolithographic reconstruction from data obtained from computer tomographic images. All the details inside the skull and also inside the bone itself can be made visible in great detail. Hidden structures become accessible for inspection and morphological assessment.
The human skull of Petralona was reproduced first, which, according to the experts, wrote evolutionary history like no other in Europe. The Middle Pleistocene skull, believed to be around 200,000 years "Image" was found in 1960 in the Petralona Cave near Thessaloniki. Since its discovery, it has been classified in various ways, from Homo erectus to Neanderthal to archaic Homo sapiens. alt="
Based on the stereolithographic model, it was discovered that this skull and its African "brother", the skull from Broken Hill in Zimbabwe, which was also reproduced, are not representatives of archaic Homo sapiens, but are an intermediate stage. New insights into the development of hominids can also be expected from the ongoing reconstruction of other skulls from early human history.
