Facial reconstruction of a 6,600-year-old man from Morocco The Rouazi-Skhirat site is an exceptional necropolis discovered in 1980, located along the Atlantic coast, 30 km southwest of Rabat. It was excavated during three rescue campaigns between 1980 and 1984. The excavations were led by a Franco-Moroccan team headed by J.-P. Daugas and F.-Z. Sbihi-Alaoui, following its discovery by Bruno Cahuzac. Most burials were preserved in protective blocks and remain at the Archaeological Museum of Rabat, while some were transported to the University of Bordeaux 1 in 1985 for study and repatriated to Morocco in 2019. The excavations uncovered 87 burials and 14 funerary deposits without human remains across 900 m². Burial S46 (genetic ID skh002) contained a young adult male (originally identified as female based on anthropological assessment; genetic testing revealed male), approximately 1.64 m tall, buried in a plaster casing on his right side with flexed legs and the pelvis elevated. The poorly preserved burial required emergency excavation in damp conditions. The body was oriented roughly south–north, with the face turned west. The skeleton was generally well preserved, with good dentition. Two healed cranial depressions were identified: one at the left pterion, consistent with a healed trepanation, and a smaller depression on the right parietal bone, probably traumatic. The upper right central incisor shows habitual occlusal wear and supra-eruption, likely associated with fishing-net repair or similar activity. An impacted right mandibular canine and dental diastema were also present. Overall, S46/skh002 represents a young adult male buried in a tightly constrained right-lateral position, with two healed cranial injuries and culturally related dental wear. He had Y-DNA T1a1a and mtDNA J2a2d (Jean-Paul Lacombe, 2023; Simões et al. 2023). #natufian #northafrica #levant - @ancestralwhispersdotorg