Starting from a damaged skull discovered on a cave floor in northern Iraq, the face of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman named “Shanidar Z” has been built from scratch. With her tranquil and thoughtful expression, Shanidar Z looks like a contemplative, approachable, and even kind middle-aged woman. She is a far cry from the snarling, animal-like stereotype of the Neanderthal first created in 1908 after the discovery of the “old man of La Chapelle”.
According to the old man and the first relatively complete skeleton of its kind to be found, researchers made a series of assumptions about Neanderthal character. They believed Neanderthals to have a low, receding forehead, protruding midface, and heavy brow representing a baseness and stupidity found among “lower races”. These assumptions were influenced by prevailing ideas about the scientific measurement of skulls and racial hierarchy – ideas now disproved as racist.
This reconstruction set the scene for understanding Neanderthals for decades, and indicated how far modern humans had come. In contrast, this latest facial reconstruction, based on research at the University of Cambridge, encourages us to empathize and see the story of Neanderthals as part of a broader human history.
“I think she can help us connect with who they were”, stated paleoarchaeologist Emma Pomeroy, a member of the Cambridge team behind the research, while speaking in a new Netflix documentary, Secrets of the NeanderthalsThe documentary explores the mysteries surrounding the Neanderthals and what their fossil record tells us about their lives and disappearance.
However, it was not paleoanthropologists, but well-known paleoartists Kennis and Kennis, who sculpted a modern human face with a recognizable sensibility and expressions. This push towards historical facial reconstruction, which evokes emotional connection is increasingly common through 3D technologies and will become more so with generative AI.
As a historian of emotion and the human face, I can tell you there is more art than science at work here. Indeed, it is good art, but questionable history.
