Overmodelling is more than just decorating a skull: it means applying a malleable substance to the bone and then sculpting it to resemble a fleshed face. Overmodelled skulls from Jericho date back to 7000 BC, but overmodelling has also been practised in Melanesia in living memory. It has appeared over a wide geographic area though in only a dozen cultures (among them Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Egypt and the Ukraine), but the far-flung examples have not been described in a single book until now.

Art Aufderheide, the palæopathologist and author of the encyclopædic The Scientific Study of Mummies, who has examined more mummies than anyone on Earth, has spent several years travelling both hemispheres, tapping the knowledge of museum curators, and seeking contributions from archæologists, anthropologists and ethnologists.