The reconstruction of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman’s face makes her look quite friendly – there’s a problem with that

By Fay Bound Alberti, Professor in Modern History and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, King's College London

From a flaky skull, found “as flat as a pizza” on a cave floor in northern Iraq, the face of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman named “Shanidar Z” has been reconstructed. With her calm and considered expression, Shanidar Z looks like a thoughtful, approachable, even kindly middle-aged woman. She is a far cry from the snarling, animalistic stereotype of the Neanderthal first created in 1908 after the discovery of the “old…

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