Revealing the face of a Neanderthal woman 75,000 years ago

A team of archaeologists in England has revealed the reconstructed face of a Neanderthal woman who lived 75,000 years ago.

The Neanderthal woman was named Shanidar Z after the cave in Iraqi Kurdistan where her skull was found in 2018. The latest discovery helps experts solve the mystery of the Neanderthal woman about 40 years old. He was buried in a sleeping position under a giant rock.

Reconstructed skull and face of a Neanderthal woman who lived 75,000 years ago named Shanidar Z. (Photo: AFP).

The skeleton's body was unearthed in 1960 during excavations by American archaeologist Ralph Solecki. At that time he found the remains of at least 10 Neanderthals.

In the group of bodies he discovered, there was a body surrounded by clusters of ancient pollen. Therefore, he made a controversial argument about the ritual of burying the dead in flower beds.

Due to political difficulties, it was some 50 years later that a team from the University of Cambridge and Liverpool John Moores University was able to return to the site in the Zagros Mountains of northern Iraq.

Neanderthals mysteriously became extinct about 40,000 years ago. Shanidar Z's skull – the best-preserved Neanderthal discovery this century – is 2cm thick and shows signs of being flattened, possibly due to being hit by a rock after her death.

Professor Graeme Barker from the University of Cambridge's McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research, who led the excavation at Shanidar Cave, said: "We wanted to try to date the graves. to use this site contribute to the purpose of determining the reason why Neanderthals became extinct".

Shanidar Z is the fifth body identified in a group of bodies buried for at least several hundred years just behind the rock in the center of the cave. Archaeologists believe that the stone block was used as an identifier to help Neanderthals return to the same location to bury their dead.

Professor Chris Hunt of Liverpool John Moores University said that burying bodies in the same location could have been "tradition" and "intergenerational transmission of knowledge" among Neanderthals.

Associate Professor Emma Pomeroy photographed the reconstructed skull and face of a Neanderthal woman who lived 75,000 years ago at Cambridge University, England. (Photo: AFP).

Ancient anthropologist Emma Pomeroy of Cambridge University, who discovered Shanidar Z, said finding Shanidar Z's skull and upper body was both "exciting" and "terrifying".

When first discovered, the skeleton and sediment surrounding Shanidar Z had to be reinforced in place with adhesive before being wrapped into dozens of small foil-wrapped blocks. Conservation team leader Lucia Lopez-Polin then had to piece together more than 200 skull fragments as the first step in reconstructing the woman's face.

Pomeroy compares the task to a difficult 3D jigsaw puzzle, especially since the skull pieces are very soft and "have the same consistency as a biscuit dipped in tea". The skull was reconstructed, then 3D printed. Paleontologists rely on that 3D printed skull to complete facial reconstruction using layers of muscle and skin.

Pomeroy assessed that Neanderthal skulls looked very different from human skulls "with huge eyebrow ridges and no chin" , but "that difference is not so obvious in life". The associate professor emphasized the interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans "to the extent that most people alive today still have Neanderthal DNA".