Jess Battison
Reading this on a screen sitting in your cosy bed or on public transport, having cooked a decent scran or grabbed an ice coffee, it’s hard to imagine what life was once like.
And no, I’m not just talking about before there was a coffee shop on every single city corner or even before the creation of Wi-Fi. I’m talking before, before.
When we were all wandering about pretty naked discovering fire and weren’t the type of humans we are now - tens of thousands of years ago when Neanderthals were roaming the Earth.
Scientists have worked hard over the years to find out more about one of our closest human relatives from 75,000 years ago.
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And an extremely well-preserved Neanderthal skeleton found in a ‘Flower Funeral’ cave has been used to reconstruct the face of its owner.
This amazing skeleton features in the new BBC Studios documentary for Netflix, Secrets of the Neanderthals.
The owner of the finding is said to be a female member of the extinct human lineage believed to have lived around 75,000 years ago.
Her remains were found in the Shanidar Cave, where Neanderthals repeatedly buried their dead, potentially on beds of flowers.
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The cave was first discovered back in the 50s in Iraqi Kurdistan and has been the site of plenty of significant finds in the entire archaeological record.
And in the 60s, clumps of pollen were discovered around one of the at least 10 individuals found, which adds to the idea the species laid floral tributes for the dead.
The reconstruction of the Neanderthal woman was based on the flattened, shattered remains of her skull. And the researchers say her bones were so soft when excavated they had the consistency of a ‘well-dunked biscuit’.
University of Cambridge’s Professor Graeme Barker leads new excavations at the Sahnidar and told BBC News: “The skull was as flat as a pizza, basically.”
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So, the team had to first strengthen the fragments before they could reassemble them. Then, expert palaeoartists created the 3D model.
This sculpture, featured in the Netflix documentary, puts a face to our long-lost evolutionary cousins.
"I think she can help us connect with who they were," said Dr Emma Pomeroy, a paleoanthropologist on the project.
"It's extremely exciting and a massive privilege actually to be able to work with the remains of any individual but especially one as special as her.”
Secrets of the Neanderthals is now streaming on Netflix.