This is the face of an ancient Eskimo who walked the Earth at the end of the Ice Age 4,000 years ago.

Scientists have unravelled the genome of a Prehistoric human for the first time after studying a clump of hair preserved in permafrost in Greenland.

They used advances in DNA analysis to discover certain characteristics including the colour of his skin and thickness of his hair - and to prove Eskimos originate from Asia and not North America.

The artist’s reconstruction of the man, who has been named "Inuk”, is based on screening for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). These are points in the genetic code which vary from person to person.

Researchers recovered his DNA from just a dark tuft of hair that was dug up along with primitive stone tools during an archaeological excavation in the Disco Bay ice fjord area of north-west Greenland in 1986.

The hair belonged to a member of the first Eskimos called the Saqqaqs, who lived inland and hunted reindeer.
On the basis of the analysis, the individual was a male.

There are currently very few details known about Inuk’s people due to the fact that little remains from their culture.

But the new findings published in Nature suggest genomic data can now be used to identify physical traits of individuals from extinct cultures even when there are just small amounts of material, such as bones, left.

Daily Mail