MOSCOW, May 2. A research group of archaeologists led by the University of Cambridge reconstructed the face of a Neanderthal woman who lived 75 thousand years ago, according to a statement on the university’s website. «A new documentary has reconstructed the face of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman whose flattened skull was discovered and reconstructed from hundreds of bone fragments by a team of archaeologists and reconstructors led by the University of Cambridge,» the statement said. It is noted that you can look at the recreated appearance in the documentary “Secrets of the Neanderthals.”
Archaeologists excavated her skeleton in 2018 in the Shanidar cave in Iraqi Kurdistan, where Neanderthals often came to bury their dead. It is noted that the skull bones of the Neanderthal, nicknamed «Shanidar Z», were severely crushed. When scientists discovered it, the skull was flattened to two centimeters. The researchers had to glue the found skeleton together with the adjacent soil with an adhesive substance and remove it in small blocks. Then, in a Cambridge laboratory, researchers performed microtomography on each of them to extract bone fragments by diluting the glue, and carefully connected more than 200 skull fragments.
The restored skull was scanned to create a copy using a 3D printer. Using a printed head as a base, the paleoartists added layers of artificial muscle and skin to create the face.
Shanidar Z at the time of her death had reached an old age for her era — she was about forty years old, and her height was about five feet (or 150 centimeters). It is believed to be the best-preserved Neanderthal found this century, the statement said.