Reconstructed face of 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman revealed [Video]

Researchers have recreated the face of a 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal after her skull was discovered during a 2018 excavation. 

Archaeologists and conservators from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom found the skull, which researchers named Shanidar Z, in the Shanidar Cave, located in Iraqi Kurdistan. 

Dr. Lucía López-Polín, the lead conservator, actually pieced together over 200 bone fragments freehand to form Shanidar Z’s skull, according to a University of Cambridge news release. 

“Each skull fragment is gently cleaned while glue and consolidant are re-added to stabilize the bone, which can be very soft, similar in consistency to a biscuit dunked in tea,” said Dr Emma Pomeroy, a palaeo-anthropologist from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology. “It’s like a high stakes 3D jigsaw puzzle. A single block can take over a fortnight to process.” 

After using surface scans and 3-D printing to form a basis for the entire head’s reconstruction, identical twins Adrie and …