CBS News
Archaeologists unveil face of Neanderthal woman 75,000 years after she died: “High stakes 3D jigsaw puzzle”
A British team of archaeologists on Thursday revealed the reconstructed face of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman, as researchers reappraise the perception of the species as brutish and unsophisticated.
Named Shanidar Z after the cave in Iraqi Kurdistan where her skull was found in 2018, the latest discovery has led experts to probe the mystery of the forty-something Neanderthal woman laid to rest in a sleeping position beneath a huge vertical stone marker.
The lower part of her skeleton is believed to have been excavated in 1960 during groundbreaking excavations by American archaeologist Ralph Solecki in which he found the remains of at least 10 Neanderthals.
“I think she can help us connect with who they were,” said Dr. Emma Pomeroy, a palaeo-anthropologist on the project from the University of Cambridge.
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“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,” she told BBC News.
Solecki’s discovery of a cluster of bodies with one surrounded by clumps of ancient pollen led him to controversially argue that this was evidence of funerary rituals with the dead placed on a bed of flowers.
Political difficulties meant it took around five decades for a team from Cambridge and Liverpool John Moores universities to be allowed back to the site in the Zagros mountains of northern Iraq.
“Skull was as flat as a pizza”
The last Neanderthals mysteriously died out around 40,000 years ago, just a few thousand years after humans arrived.
Shanidar Z’s skull — thought to be the best preserved Neanderthal find this century — had been flattened to a thickness of 0.7 inches, possibly by a rockfall relatively soon after she died.
Professor Graeme Barker from Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, told the BBC the “skull was as flat as a pizza, basically.”
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“It’s a remarkable journey to go from that to what you see now,” Barker said. “As an archaeologist, you can sometimes get blasé about what you’re doing. But every now and then you are brought up short by the fact you are touching the past. We forget just what an extraordinary thing it is.”
Shanidar Z is the fifth body to be identified in the cluster buried over a period of at least several hundred years right behind the rock in the center of the cave.
Archaeologists believe the stone was used as an identifier to allow itinerant Neanderthals to return to the same spot to bury their dead.
Latest research by team member Professor Chris Hunt of John Moores now suggests the pollen that gave rise to Solecki’s contentious “flower burial” theory might in fact have come from bees burrowing into the cave floor.
But Hunt said there was still evidence — such as the remains of a partially paralyzed Neanderthal found by Solecki — that the species were more empathetic than previously thought.
“There’s been this huge reappraisal which was actually started by Ralph Solecki in this cave with ‘Shanidar 1’ with his withered arm and his arthritis and his deafness who must have been looked after. That tells us there was compassion,” he said.
The positioning of the bodies in the cluster in the same spot, in the same position and facing in the same direction implied “tradition” and the “passing of knowledge between generations,” he said.
“Exciting” and “terrifying” discovery
“It looks much more like purposeful behavior that you wouldn’t associate with the text book stories about Neanderthals which is that their lives were nasty, brutish and short,” he added.
Pomeroy, the Cambridge palaeo-anthropologist who uncovered Shanidar Z, said finding her skull and upper body had been both “exciting” and “terrifying.”
The skeleton and the surrounding sediment had to be strengthened in situ with a glue-like consolidant before being removed in dozens of small foil-wrapped blocks.
Lead conservator Lucia Lopez-Polin then pieced together the over 200 bits of skull as the first step in the facial reconstruction for the just-released Netflix documentary “Secrets of the Neanderthals.”
Pomeroy said the task had been like a “high stakes 3D jigsaw puzzle” especially as the fragments were very soft “similar in consistency to a biscuit dunked in tea”.
The rebuilt skull was then 3D-printed allowing palaeo-artists and identical twins Adrie and Alfons Kennis in The Netherlands to complete the reconstruction with layers of fabricated muscle and skin for the documentary, which was produced by the BBC Studios Science Unit.
Pomeroy said Neanderthal skulls looked very different to those of humans “with huge brow ridges and lack of chins.”
But she said the recreated face “suggests those differences were not so stark in life,” highlighting the interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans “to the extent that almost everyone alive today still has Neanderthal DNA.”
The BBC reported that the researchers are confident the Neanderthal is a female. Because no pelvic bones were recovered, archaeologists relied on certain dominant proteins found in the tooth enamel that are associated with female genetics. The slight stature of the skeleton also supports the interpretation.
NEW YORK — Drones have been banned from flying over several New Jersey towns, the Federal Aviation Administration confirms to CBS News.
The FAA order covers nearly two dozen towns, including Jersey City, Harrison, Edison, Bayonne and Camden. It will be in effect until Jan. 17.
The order says no unmanned aircraft can operate below 400 feet within one nautical mile of the airspace specified in each area. Additionally, it allows the government to use “deadly force” against the drones if they pose an “imminent security threat.”
“Pilots of aircraft that do not adhere to the procedures in the national security requirements for aircraft operations contained in this section may be intercepted, and/or detained and interviewed by federal, state, or local law enforcement or other government personnel,” the order reads in part.
Several of the zones are centered around infrastructure, like power substations. Others cover areas like the Kearny, New Jersey port and airspace around military installations like Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in South Jersey, or airports such as Newark-Liberty International Airport.
Earlier this month, the Florham Park, New Jersey police chief told residents drone sightings had been reported above “water reservoirs, electric transmission lines, rail stations, police departments, and military installations.”
Where are drones banned in New Jersey?
North Jersey:
- Cedar Grove
- Bridgewater
- North Brunswick
- Metuchen
- South Brunswick
- Edison
- Branchburg
- Sewaren
- Jersey City
- Harrison, Essex County
- Elizabeth
- Bayonne
- Clifton
- Kearny
Central Jersey:
South Jersey:
- Burlington
- Evesham
- Camden
- Gloucester City
- Westampton
- Winslow
- Hancocks Bridge, Salem County
See the full order from the FAA here.
Mysterious drones over New Jersey and beyond
Drones sightings have been reported all month long, first over Morris County, New Jersey and then over several other East Coast states.
Federal, state and local officials have been demanding more information about where they are coming from and what’s being done to stop them. The FBI is leading the investigation and tells CBS News it has received thousands of tips.
While the White House says there is no known threat, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy recently sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking for more federal resources.
On Wednesday, a push from Sen. Chuck Schumer to give local law enforcement more ways to track drones was blocked in the Senate.
Check back soon for the latest updates on this developing story.
contributed to this report.
Two highway crashes in southeastern Afghanistan killed a combined total of 50 people and injured 76, a government spokesman said Thursday.
One was a collision between a bus and an oil tanker on the Kabul-Kandahar highway late Wednesday, said Hafiz Omar, a spokesman for the governor of Ghazni province.
The other, also late Wednesday and in the same province, was in a different area of the same highway, which connects the Afghan capital with the south.
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Hamidullah Nisar, the provincial head of the Taliban-run Information and Culture Department, told the Reuters news agency the other accident involved a cargo truck, adding that some of those injured in both collisions were in critical condition.
Omar said many of the injured were taken to hospitals in Ghazni and patients in more serious condition were transferred to Kabul. Women and children were among the casualties, he said.
Authorities were in the process of handing over the bodies to families, Omar said.
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Crash survivor Abdullah Khan, who was being treated in a Ghazni hospital, said he didn’t know how many people had either died or were injured.
“I got out from the bus myself and heard the sound of moaning. There was blood everywhere. Some people had head injuries and others had hurt their legs.”
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Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, mainly due to poor road conditions and driver carelessness.
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CBS News
France’s President Emmanuel Macron tours cyclone-battered Mayotte, meets survivors pleading for help
Mamoudzou, Mayotte — France’s President Emmanuel Macron traveled Thursday to the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte to survey the devastation that Cyclone Chido wrought across the French territory as thousands of people tried to cope without bare essentials such as water or electricity.
“Mayotte is demolished,” an airport security agent told Macron as soon as he stepped off the plane.
The security agent, Assane Haloi, said her family members, including small children, are without water or electricity and have nowhere to go after the strongest cyclone in nearly a century ripped through the French territory of Mayotte off the coast of Africa on Saturday.
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“There’s no roof, there’s nothing. No water, no food, no electricity. We can’t even shelter, we are all wet with our children covering ourselves with whatever we have so that we can sleep,” she said, asking for emergency aid.
Macron got a helicopter tour of the damage and was to spend Thursday night on the far-flung French territory. After flying over the destruction, he headed to the hospital in Mamoudzou, Mayotte’s capital, to meet medical staff and patients.
Wearing a traditional Mayotte scarf on his white shirt and tie, sleeves rolled to the elbows, the French president listened to people asking for help. A member of the medical staff told him some people hadn’t had a drink of water for 48 hours.
Some residents also expressed agony at not knowing about those who have died or are still missing, partly because of the Muslim practice of burying the dead within 24 hours.
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“We’re dealing with open-air mass graves,” Mayotte lawmaker Estelle Youssoufa told reporters. “There are no rescuers, no one has come to recover the buried bodies.”
Some survivors and aid groups have described hasty burials and the stench of bodies.
Macron acknowledged that many who died hadn’t been reported. He said phone services will be repaired “in the coming days” so that people can report their missing loved ones.
French authorities have said at least 31 people died and more than 1,500 people were injured, more than 200 critically. But it’s feared hundreds or even thousands of people have died in total.
Abdou Houmadou, 27, said emergency aid was needed immediately, not Macron’s presence.
“Mr. President, what I’d like to tell you… is I think the spending you made from Paris to Mayotte would have been better spent to help the people,” he said.
Another resident, Ahamadi Mohammed, said Macron’s visit “is a good thing because he’ll be able to see by himself the damage.”
“I think that we’ll then get significant aid to try and get the island back on its feet,” the 58-year-old said.
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Macron’s office said four tons of food and medical aid, as well as additional rescuers, were aboard the president’s flight. A navy ship was due to arrive in Mayotte on Thursday with another 180 tons of aid and equipment, according to the French military.
People living in a large slum on the outskirts of Mamoudzou were some of the hardest hit by the cyclone. Many lost their houses, some lost friends.
Nassirou Hamidouni sheltered in his house when the cyclone hit.
His neighbor was killed when his house collapsed on him and his six children. Hamidouni and others dug through the rubble to reach them.
The 28-year-old father of five is now trying to rebuild his own house, which was also destroyed.
He believes the death toll is much higher than what’s officially being reported, given the severity of what he lived through.
“It was very hard,” he said.
Mayotte, located in the Indian Ocean between mainland Africa’s east coast and northern Madagascar, is France’s poorest territory.
The cyclone devastated entire neighborhoods and many people ignored the warnings, thinking the storm wouldn’t be so extreme.
Mayotte has more than 320,000 residents according to the French government. Most are Muslim and French authorities have estimated another 100,000 migrants live there.
Mayotte is the only part of the Comoros archipelago that voted to remain a part of France in a 1974 referendum.
Over the last decade, the French territory has seen a massive influx of migrants from the neighboring islands – the independent nation of Comoros, which is one of the world’s poorest countries.
