The second reconstruction was the work of Élisabeth Daynès, a French paleo-artist and scientific collaborator who is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost practitioners of hyperrealistic hominin and ancient human reconstruction.

Daynès operates a studio in Paris that has become something of an institution in the paleoanthropology world.

Her reconstructions appear in natural history museums on multiple continents, including the Smithsonian Institution’s Hall of Human Origins in Washington, D.C., and the Natural History Museum in London.

She has reconstructed Neanderthals, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo erectus, Australopithecus afarensis, and numerous other ancient hominins and early modern humans.

Each reconstruction involves months of work, extensive scientific consultation, and the deployment of craft techniques borrowed from high-end cinema special effects work — techniques that produce results of extraordinary physical and visual realism.