Seeing Neandertal teeth as art

Some time ago the NESPOS project undertook the microCT scanning of all of the teeth from the rockshelter on the Hušnjakovo hill near Krapina, Croatia. As part of the documentation of the fossils, the project supported the Croatian photographer Luka Mjeda, who provided standardized views of each tooth from six points of view.

Mjeda has done a great deal of documentary photography of these fossils, creating images that have been shared in scientific books and the wonderful Krapina Neanderthal Museum at the site.

The NESPOS documentary photography inspired Mjeda to do something special: He began to conceive of the artistic dimension of the teeth, through color and pattern. Mjeda created a series of art prints that play with the forms of these teeth, bringing out a surprisingly evocative series of portraits.

Readers can explore the varied prints on Mjeda's website. I was reminded of the project this week by my friend David Frayer, who wrote an introduction to Mjeda's book, Teeth as Art, showcasing the project. Frayer has spent perhaps more time with the Krapina teeth than almost any other researcher, and he helped bring Mjeda's art to the U.S. for exhibition in 2012. In a piece for Scientific American, he reflected on the remarkable details of life that Neandertal teeth can provide to scientists today. Scientists, he noted, have been applying the latest technology to these teeth from the time of their discovery:

“[Croatian paleontologist Dragutin] Gorjanović was the first to look at Neandertal teeth in new ways by publishing a series of radiographic images in 1902, just seven years after Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of x-rays…. Although Gorjanović probably never considered the aesthetics of the Krapina teeth, we think he would have appreciated this new view of them through the eyes of an artist.”—David Frayer

The Krapina Neandertals lived approximately 130,000 years ago, during a time when interglacial conditions made Europe relatively warm. The excavations of the site by Gorjanović unearthed some of their technology and evidence that they hunted rhinoceros. The site included remains from more than thirty, and possibly as many as eighty, Neandertal individuals. Their teeth provide more information about the details of their lives than any other fossil elements.

The editor of Teeth as Art was the Croatian writer Edda Dubravec. Reflecting on Mjeda's work, she considered how the details of the teeth give rise to the artist's vision.

“Teeth which chewed food, teeth which were perhaps hurt because they had caries or some other damage, became unusual images, abstract and realistic at the same time, which we can look at and experience as crystalline forms, images in which we can enter a kind of spiral of memory, perhaps of recognition, too….”—Edda Dubravec

Sometimes the objects that we study in the human past are beautiful to everyone. Often, scientists must work to help others become aware of the beauty that they hold. Seeing these things in new ways is central to the process of scientific discovery, and it is wonderful when that vision gives rise to art.