Chris Stringer

At this time, Britain was approaching an ice age.

How did these early species manage to survive here? Were they more advanced than we've previously thought? These are the questions now facing experts like Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum.

So what were those capabilities? Did these people have control of fire? Did they have clothes?

Whether they had clothing, whether they had the use of fire, we can't tell from here.

Whoever processed the dead was doing something else at the same time, because three skulls were carefully transformed into cups.

Sylvia Bello, Simon Parfitt, and Chris Stringer reconstructed the manufacturing sequence in a 2011 study.

Soft tissue was meticulously removed from the head.

Facial bones and the base of the skull were broken away in a controlled manner, and the remaining cranial vault was worked into a comparatively regular container.

One archeologist told New Scientist magazine that the bigger individual was roughly the size of the soccer star Erling Haaland.

Chris Stringer, one of the most respected names in the field, said they're up there with the largest Neanderthals we've ever estimated.

And for scale on that, the tallest Neanderthal skeleton anyone has ever dug up, a man from Amud Cave in Israel, stood about 5'10".

That is the ceiling Stringer is comparing these Denisovans to.

At this time, Britain was approaching an ice age.

How did these early species manage to survive here? Were they more advanced than we previously thought? These are the questions now facing experts like Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum.

What were these capabilities? Did these people have control of fire? Do they have clothes?

Whether they had clothing, whether they had the use of fire, we can't tell from here.