Archaeologists Reconstruct Face of 75,000-Year-Old Female Neanderthal from Iraqi Cave Burial Site
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thunderbong
2mo ago· 5 min readenNews
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Summary
Archaeologists have reconstructed the face of a 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal named Shanidar Z, whose skull was discovered in a cave in Iraqi Kurdistan. The skull was flattened to about 2cm thick but was painstakingly rebuilt from hundreds of bone fragments. The discovery comes from Shanidar Cave, where at least ten Neanderthals have been found, with five buried in a cluster behind a large vertical rock that may have served as a landmark for repeated burials. This finding provides new insights into Neanderthal burial practices and challenges previous assumptions about their cognitive abilities and social behaviors.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledNeanderthals have had a bad press ever since the first ones were found over 150 years ago
The rock had come down from the ceiling long before the bodies were interred. Researchers say it may have served as a landmark for Neanderthals to identify a particular site for repeated burials
Shanidar Z is the fifth to be found in a cluster of bodies buried at a similar time in the same location: right behind a huge vertical rock, over two metres tall at the time, which sits in the centre of the cave
The skull was flattened to about two centimetres thick, but was painstakingly rebuilt from hundreds of bone fragments
A new documentary has recreated the face of a 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal whose flattened skull was discovered and rebuilt from hundreds of bone fragments by a team of archaeologists and conservators led by the University of Cambridge.
