An exhibit at the Canadian Museum of History has members of the shíshálh Nation looking straight into the eyes of their ancestors.

Using the 4,000-year-old remains of five shíshálh ancestors – a 50-year-old male, a 19-23-year-old female, two brothers aged 20-25, and one infant – researchers created a three-dimensional, animated and forensic-based facial reconstruction that is the first of its kind in North America.

The people behind the faces

The two brothers in the display are thought to be twins, having been buried in the same grave and virtually identical with the same impacted wisdom teeth and suture lines on their skulls.

Terence Clark, director of the shíshálh Archaeological Research Project, finds the height of the oldest male another clue to understanding the group’s connections to one another: “They are three of the tallest men ever recorded on the north-west coast. So, we think that also gives credence to the idea that perhaps he is related to them.”

The remains were first located ten years ago in a burial site near Sechelt, British Columbia by Clark and his team. Excavated at the request of the shíshálh community, the burial site also had over 350, 000 beads made from mudstone, silt stone or slate, indicating the remains were likely high-status and powerful individuals. Typical burial sites in British Columbia have only a couple hundred.

“[This site] is certainly the most elaborate burials in Canada before contact,” Clark says.