Canada to see warm summer, wildfire risks loom for some regions: forecast
Get ready to feel the heat, Canada. Weather experts are predicting more sunshine and warmer temperatures for the summer.
A 40-something woman was buried in a cave 75,000 years ago, laid to rest in a gully hollowed out to accommodate her body. Her left hand was curled under her head, and a rock behind her head may have been placed as a cushion.
Known as Shanidar Z, after the cave in Iraqi Kurdistan where she was found in 2018, the woman was a Neanderthal, a type of ancient human that disappeared around 40,000 years ago.
Scientists studying her remains have painstakingly pieced together her skull from 200 bone fragments, a process that took nine months. They used the contours of the face and skull to guide a reconstruction to understand what she may have looked like.
The striking recreation is featured in a new documentary “Secrets of the Neanderthals” produced by BBC for Netflix, which is available for streaming on Thursday.
With pronounced brow ridges and no chins, the skulls of Neanderthals look different from those of our own species, Homo sapiens, said Dr. Emma Pomeroy, a paleoanthropologist and associate professor with the University of Cambridge’s department of archaeology who unearthed the skeleton and appears in the new film. The Shanidar Z facial reconstruction suggests that these differences might not have been so stark in life, Pomeroy said.
“There is some artistic license there, but at the heart of it is the real skull and real data on what we know about (these) people,” she said.
“She’s actually got quite a large face for her size,” Pomeroy added. “She’s got quite big brow ridges, which typically we wouldn’t see, but I think dressed in modern clothes you probably wouldn’t look twice.”
Neanderthals lived across Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia Mountains for around 300,000 years, overlapping with modern humans for 30,000 years or so. Analysis of DNA from present-day humans has revealed that, during this time, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens occasionally encountered one another and interbred.
When Pomeroy first excavated the skeleton, its sex wasn’t immediately obvious because only the upper half of the body was preserved. It lacked telltale pelvic bones. The team that initially studied the remains relied on a relatively new technique involving the sequencing of proteins inside tooth enamel to determine Shanidar Z’s sex, which is revealed for the first time in the documentary.
Those researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Liverpool estimated the specimen’s height to have been around five feet (1.5 metres) by comparing the length and diameter of her arm bones with data on modern humans. An analysis of wear and tear on teeth and bones suggested she was in her mid-40s at the time of her death.
“It’s a reasonable estimate, but we can’t be 100 per cent sure, actually, that they weren’t older,” Pomeroy said. “What we can say is this is someone who had lived a relatively long life. For that society, they probably would have been quite important in terms of their knowledge, their life experience.”
The skull was found crushed and fragmented into 200 pieces. (Courtesy Netflix via CNN Newsource)
The cave where Shanidar Z was buried is well-known among archaeologists because a Neanderthal grave discovered there in 1960 led researchers to believe that Neanderthals may have interred their dead with flowers — the first challenge to the prevailing view that the ancient humans were dumb and brutish. Subsequent research by Pomeroy’s team, however, has cast doubt on that flower burial theory.
Instead, they suspect the pollen discovered among the graves may have arrived via pollinating bees.
Still, over the years scientists have found increasing evidence of Neanderthals’ intelligence, sophistication and complexity, including art, string and tools.
Neanderthals repeatedly returned to Shanidar Cave to lay their dead to rest. The remains of 10 Neanderthals have been unearthed at the site, half of which appear to have been buried deliberately in succession, research has found.
Neanderthals may not have honored their dead with bouquets of flowers, but the inhabitants of Shanidar Cave were likely an empathetic species, research suggests. For example, one male Neanderthal buried there was deaf and had a paralyzed arm and head trauma that probably rendered him partially blind, yet he lived a long time, so he must have been cared for, according to research.
Shanidar Z is the first Neanderthal found in the cave in more than 50 years, Pomeroy said, but the site could still yield more discoveries. During the filming of the documentary in 2022, Pomeroy uncovered a left shoulder blade, some rib bones and a right hand belonging to another Neanderthal.
“I think our interpretation at the moment,” she said, “is that actually this is probably the remains of a single individual, which has then been disturbed.”
Pomeroy described reconstructing Shanidar Z’s skull, which had been crushed relatively soon after death as a “high-stakes 3D jigsaw puzzle.” The fossilized bones were hardened with a glue-like substance, removed in small blocks of cave sediment and wrapped in foil before researchers sent them to the University of Cambridge for analysis.
In the Cambridge lab, researchers took micro-CT scans of each block and used the scans to guide extraction of bone fragments. Pomeroy’s colleague Dr. Lucía López-Polín, an archaeological conservator from the Catalan Institute for Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution in Spain, pieced over 200 bits of skull together by eye to return it to its original shape.
The team scanned and 3D-printed the rebuilt skull, which formed the basis of a reconstructed head created by Danish paleoartists Adrie and Alfons Kennis, twin brothers who built up layers of fabricated muscle and skin to reveal Shanidar Z’s face.
Pomeroy said the reconstruction helped “bridge that gap between anatomy and 75,000 years of time.”\
Get ready to feel the heat, Canada. Weather experts are predicting more sunshine and warmer temperatures for the summer.
Hagar Brodutch, her three children and four-year-old neighbour were kidnapped by Hamas-led militants from their home in Kfar Aza, Israel on Oct. 7 and held for 51 days. They were released in November, but Brodutch says her thoughts are never far from those still being held in Gaza.
More than four years after COVID-19 effectively shut down the world, two new variants of COVID-19 have become the dominant strains of the novel coronavirus in Canada.
The Gaza health ministry called on Wednesday for ensuring safe pathways for the immediate entry of fuel and medical aid to Rafah and northern Gaza, according to a statement carried by Hamas media quoting spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra.
A professional kiteboarder from P.E.I. says he has been seriously injured in a shark attack that occurred while he was snorkelling in the Turks and Caicos Islands last week.
A WestJet flight heading to Calgary had to make an emergency landing in northern B.C. Monday due to an incident involving an 'unruly passenger,' Mounties say.
New evidence suggests that feeding children smooth peanut butter during infancy and early childhood can help reduce their risk of developing a peanut allergy even years later.
It’s the airplane seat design that launched a thousand memes and kickstarted a media storm. And now the double-level seat is back – only this time, with a twist.
Greg Fergus survived a vote to oust him as House of Commons Speaker on Tuesday, but with close to half of MPs expressing a loss of confidence in him, he faces a precarious path forward in maintaining order in Parliament.
It's been a long time coming, but one Oilers superfan is hoping this will be the year he gets to touch up his massive Stanley Cup back tattoo.
A man's daring rescue of a newborn wild foal that was trapped after falling down a steep embankment was caught on video over the weekend.
A Winnipeg pinball wizard is heading to the granddaddy of them all – the IFPA World Pinball Championship.
It’s the chance of a lifetime for a group of Ottawa athletes who are getting ready to represent Team Canada at the World Junior Ultimate championships in the United Kingdom.
Parishioners at Holy Trinity Anglican Church are praying for a monetary miracle, as their historic place of worship could collapse at any moment.
A Saskatchewan man made it to the summit of Mount Everest earlier this month.
IAMGOLD’s Cote Gold open pit mine, located off Highway 144 between Timmins and Sudbury, had its official ribbon-cutting ceremony this week as production ramps up.
When one is extended an invitation to the Royal Garden Party in London, England, there's undoubtedly no shortage of pomp and circumstance. Barrie, Ont. natives Megan Kirk Chang and her husband Brandon experienced just that as they entered the prestigious event hosted at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.
An unlikely celebrity emerged from social media to cheer on the Edmonton Oilers as they face the Dallas Stars tonight in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.