The three methods were: forensic facial reconstruction using the traditional Manchester method; hyperrealistic artistic-scientific reconstruction in silicone; and virtual reconstruction using a computational algorithm called AFA3D, developed within French research infrastructure.

Method One: The Manchester Method and Forensic Tradition

The first reconstruction was carried out by Pavla Zedníková Malá, a specialist in forensic facial reconstruction based in the Czech Republic, working at an institution with a tradition of physical anthropological study of the very specimens being examined.

The Manchester method, sometimes called the tissue depth method or the anatomical-forensic method, is a technique with roots in criminal identification work.

It was developed and systematized by scholars including Richard Neave at the University of Manchester during the latter decades of the twentieth century — hence the name — and has been applied to archaeological and paleoanthropological specimens with increasing frequency since the 1980s and 1990s.