The result, when successful, is something genuinely uncanny — a reconstruction that crosses into the territory that most scientific approaches cannot reach: the territory of individual presence.

A Daynès reconstruction looks not just like a type of person but like a specific person, with all the particular character and subtle asymmetry that living faces carry.

But Daynès is not simply an artist working from aesthetic intuition alone.

Her process involves extensive consultation with the scientists who have studied each specimen.

For the ancient Jomon woman reconstructed in 2021, for the various archaic humans she has recreated, and for Zlatý kůň, her starting point is a thorough review of the skeletal evidence and the available genetic information.

She works with anatomists who help her understand the muscle attachments and proportions that the bone structure implies.