A team of North American scientists reconstructed the image of the face of a man whom they considered a “vampire” in the XVIII century. The experts analyzed the DNA of the bone structure of the corpse and thus obtained an indication of what this person looked like.
According to what the media reports Very interestingthis initiative is part of a technology startup called Parabon NanoLabs, based in Virginia, United States.
The experts teamed up with the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL), a unit of the United States Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, to first show a technology with which the image of a face can be reconstructed from genetic tests.
Also, ridiculous as it may sound, it serves to debunk the vampire/human mythos in America. The body they unearthed was that of John Barber, a lower-class farmer who lived on a farm in the town of Connecticut.
It is known that this subject was considered a vampire because of the way he was buried: with a pair of X-shaped femurs crossed over his chest.
The face and characteristics of the “vampire”
The result of the analysis of the bones showed that John Barber was 55 years old when he died. His DNA shows that he was an ordinary human. He did not have the X gene that gave him supernatural forces or anything similar that would relate him to a different animal than any normal person.
He had fair skin, brown eyes, dark hair and freckles on his face, according to 3D facial reconstruction software.
The objective of this facial reconstruction test is to demonstrate that data can be obtained on the appearance of a person who lived hundreds of years ago, regardless of the state of their remains.
Scientist Ellen Greytak, director of bioinformatics at Parabon NanoLabs and leader of the research explains: “When bones age, they break down and fragment over time. Also, when debris has been in the environment for hundreds of years, environmental DNA from things like bacteria and fungi also ends up in the sample. We wanted to show that we could still extract DNA from difficult historical samples.”