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'Treated as something dangerous and vicious': See stunning reconstruction of 'vampire' buried with a blade over her neck

Live Science
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75% Informative

Polish villagers buried a young-but-sickly woman under a lock and blade in a 17th-century cemetery.

A new reconstruction of this individual reveals what she may have looked like.

The woman was 18 to 20 years old when she died and around 5 feet , 4 inches ( 162 centimeters ) tall.

A DNA analysis was unable to determine her skin, eye and hair color, but it did point to a heritage from southern Scandinavia .

Laura is the archaeology and Life's Little Mysteries editor at Live Science .

She also reports on general science, including paleontology.

Her work has appeared in The New York Times , Scholastic , Popular Science and Spectrum .

Laura holds a bachelor's degree in English literature and psychology from Washington University .