Although ancient DNA (aDNA) cannot predict the facial appearance of skeletal human remains, knowing which extant populations are most closely related to the deceased has proven to be invaluable in rectifying two early facial approximations (popularly known as facial reconstruction) undertaken 15 years ago. These concerned two of the crania excavated from the Lapita burial site at Teouma on the island of Efate, and are associated with the first human arrival in the Vanuatu archipelago approximately 3000 years ago. This experimental revision to incorporate aDNA into both the methods and results has found there are advantages of knowing the genetic affiliation for estimating facial appearance. Specifically, we have found that this knowledge (i) facilitates identifying which of the current statistically valid predictors of the facial features are the most appropriate, (ii) informs the depiction of sexually dimorphic patterns of facial aging, and (iii) guides the portrayal of the subtle facial morphologies that fall outside what is currently provided by statistically validated skull-soft tissue algorithms and inter-relationships.

尽管古代 DNA (aDNA) 无法预测人类骨骼遗骸的面部外观，但事实证明，了解哪些现存人群与死者关系最密切对于纠正 15 年前进行的两次早期面部近似（通常称为面部重建）非常有价值。这些涉及从埃法特岛特奥马的拉皮塔墓地出土的两个头盖骨，与大约 3000 年前首次人类抵达瓦努阿图群岛有关。这项将 DNA 纳入方法和结果的实验​​修订发现，了解遗传关系对于估计面部外观具有优势。具体来说，我们发现这些知识（i）有助于识别当前统计上有效的面部特征预测因子中哪些是最合适的，（ii）为面部衰老的性别二态模式的描述提供信息，以及（iii）指导描绘微妙的面部形态超出了目前经统计验证的颅骨-软组织算法和相互关系所提供的范围。