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Humans

Astonishing images show how female Neanderthal may have looked

The skull of Shanidar Z was found in the Shanidar cave in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and has been painstakingly put back together

By Alison George

2 May 2024

New Scientist Default Image

A reconstruction of what Shanidar Z might have looked like, by Dutch twins Adrie and Alfons Kennis

BBC Studios/Jamie Simonds

MEET Shanidar Z, one of the most important Neanderthal discoveries in a generation. Her remains, thought to date back 75,000 years, were fully unearthed five years ago in a re-excavation of a legendary archaeological site, Shanidar cave, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

She appears to have been deliberately interred along with a cluster of nine other Neanderthal men, women and children, whose skeletons were uncovered from the 1950s onwards and transformed our…

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