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Neanderthals go to Washington

The National Museum of Natural History in Washington is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition on human origins featuring Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon skulls on show for the first time outside Europe.

The museum's new $20.7 million (£13.8) exhibition hall, dubbed the Hall of Human Origins, provides visitors an "opportunity to connect their personal life to the evidence that human species evolves over million of years," museum director Cristian Samper said as he unveiled the wing on Wednesday.

Visitors can gaze into the eyes of reproductions of Homo erectus and Australopithecus who populated the planet for millennia. A photo booth transforms a curious onlooker's traits into those of a Homo floresiensis (or "hobbit") or Cro-Magnon.

Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)