Reading time: 2 minutes – Spotted on Newsweek
Science can sometimes work miracles. The latest: archaeologists have succeeded in reconstructing the human face of a Neanderthal woman who lived more than 75,000 years ago. A face larger than life, as if she had died yesterday.
To achieve this feat, scientists relied on bone fragments from a Neanderthal woman named “Shanidar Z”, discovered for the first time in 2018 in a cave in Iraqi Kurdistan. This cave was probably used as a burial site, as indicated by the presence of various bones and traces of rituals, including the placing of bodies on flower beds.
Closer to humans than monkeys
The remains of Shanidar Z, who is believed to have died after a rock fell on her head, included a flattened skull about two centimeters thick, among the best preserved ever discovered.
Scientists used a type of glue to strengthen the surrounding bones and glue together nearly 200 pieces to restore the original shape, including its upper and lower jaws. A hell of a puzzle which, once completed, was printed in 3D. All that remained was to add layers of fabricated muscle and skin to reveal his face:
For a long time, scientists thought that Neanderthals, who died out around 40,000 years ago, looked nothing like humans. At least, that they were physically more similar to monkeys than to humans. The reconstruction of Shanidar Z’s face shows quite the opposite.
The face of this woman, who was around forty years old at the time of her death, presents all the human characteristics, with a few more crude features – prominent eyebrow arches for example, just like her nose, but on the contrary the chin, of which it is deprived. Overall, all the elements are there, and it is not certain that we would turn around stunned if we came across Shanidar Z in the street today.
