Women, Children Had a Hand in Terracotta Army

The army of clay warriors guarding China's first emperor may have been crafted by hands far more varied than long assumed. A new fingerprint study of 36 Terracotta Army figures suggests women and children helped shape the famed third-century BC sculptures near Xi'an. Researchers from the Mausoleum Site Museum analyzed 79 prints impressed in clay on arms, armor, and heads, then ran them through a Bayesian statistical model that compared ancient ridge patterns with modern datasets, per Phys.org. Their estimate: about 45% of the prints came from adult men, roughly 33% from adult women, and 22% from children under 15.

Fingerprints change with age, with spaces growing between the closely-packed ridges seen in childhood. Adult males end up with spaces slightly wider than adult women, reports Archaeology News. The team cautions that the sample is small, drawn from just one area of a vast excavation complex (specifically unit T23 of Pit 1), and that multiple prints could have come from the same individual. They also note the sample could represent apprentices, since master craftspeople were better at concealing their marks. Still, the findings upend the idea that only male artisans built the emperor's underground guard, according to the study published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage.