Final Resolution: The Face and the Question Behind It

Return, at the end, to the image.

The reconstructed face of Shanidar Z has been seen by many millions of people who would not otherwise have engaged with a scientific paper about Neanderthal burial practices.

It has made a technical finding accessible.

It has prompted conversations about who Neanderthals were that might not have happened without it.

But the face is, in the end, a means to an end.

It is a way of asking a question that the evidence raises but cannot fully answer.