Tottori: Face of Yayoi Period Woman Reconstructed; First Time Female Face from the Time Re-created

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:40 JST, April 5, 2025

TOTTORI — A bust of a Japanese woman from 1,800 years ago, whose face was reconstructed from bones unearthed from a Tottori ruins site, was unveiled last month.

The several hundred years around the time of Christ corresponded to the Yayoi period in Japan. Therefore, the woman is believed to have lived in the late Yayoi period.

Over 100 human remains were discovered at the Aoya Kamijichi ruins since excavations began in 1998. Based on these remains, the Tottori prefectural government previously restored the faces of a man and a boy. This is the first time a woman’s face has been reconstructed.

The woman is believed to have been in her 30s or 40s, with a long face and slightly fair skin. Her hair is thick and straight, and her eyebrows are dark. She has double eyelids.

Tatsuhiko Hamada of the Aoya Kamijichi Historical Park began creating the facial reconstruction in 2021 using the bones of the Yayoi people.

Hamada, 55, re-created the face of a man in his 30s from a skull found in almost perfect condition along with the DNA extracted from it. It marked the nation’s first attempt to reconstruct the face of a Yayoi person based on genetic information.

He then worked on reconstructing a woman’s face, but found it difficult to discover the bones needed to use as a basis. The bones he chose were in good condition, but he could not obtain bones from below the nose. So he searched for pieces from the more than 5,000 bones preserved and joined them together to make up for the missing part.

“As the work neared completion, her face became clearer, helping me imagine a type of person who had lived here back then,” Hamada said. “All three together will help get a picture of how people back then lived in this place.”