John Gurche helps people understand how ancient humans looked by creating lifelike models based on archaeological finds. The work requires a mix of artistic skill and scientific knowledge.
Gurche is a paleo artist, who creates lifelike models of our ancient human cousins at his studio in upstate New York. He studies fossils from around the world. He bases his work as much as possible on the available evidence.
Gurche is trying to reshape the perception of ancient humans like the Neanderthals. They’ve often been shown as primitive cavemen, who died out because we were better versions, but a growing body of science is challenging that story.
In recent years, researchers have gained the power to pull DNA from ancient hominins, including our long-dead ancestors and other relatives who walked on two legs. The field has shed new light on how our species, Homo sapiens, came to be and suggested that these other extinct groups may be closer to us than we thought.
“I have to basically switch heads when I’m working. I have to make sure that I’m paying attention to aesthetic concerns, things like facial expression and that sort of thing. And I also have to make sure I’m true to the science,” Gurche said.
Gurche is meticulous and the work is time-consuming. He builds a face in clay over a cast of a skull, muscle by muscle, gland by gland. That reconstruction is then molded so it can be cast in silicone. Hair is added to the silicone reconstruction, strand by strand. “In my training, and also in my early years of my art career, I was doing a lot of paleontology-focused art in a sort of general way,” he says.
“But my first love was always human evolution because I think of the evolution of humans on Earth as one of the most remarkable points in the history of life,” Gurche added. His work has been shown in museums around the world, including the Smithsonian, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Field Museum in Chicago.
This article was provided by The Associated Press.