Written by Jonathan Amos, Rebecca Morrell and Alison Francis
BBC Science News
What would it be like to meet one of our closest human relatives from 75,000 years ago in the flesh?
Scientists have produced a remarkable reconstruction of what a Neanderthal woman looked like when she was alive.
It is based on the flattened, crushed remains of a skull whose bones were very soft when excavated and had a consistency similar to a “well-dipped biscuit.”
The researchers first had to strengthen the parts before reassembling them.
Then expert paleontologists created the 3D model.
This representation appears in a new documentary from BBC Studios for Netflix called Neanderthal Secrets, which examines what we know about our long-lost evolutionary cousins, who became extinct about 40,000 years ago.
The sculpture puts a face to these people.
She told the BBC: “It is very exciting and a privilege to be able to work with the remains of any individual, especially someone as special as her.”
The skull on which the model is based was found in Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan. It is a special place where the remains of at least 10 Neanderthal men, women and children were discovered in the 1950s.
When Kurdish authorities invited a British group back in 2015, they quickly found a new skeleton – dubbed “Shanidar Z” – consisting of much of the upper body, including the spine, shoulders, arms and hands.
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