Shanidar Cave is an archaeological site in the Bradsot mountain, Zagros Mountains in Erbil Governorate, Kurdistan Region, Iraq. The site is located in the valley of the Great Zab. It was excavated from 1957–1961 by Ralph Solecki and his team from Columbia University and yielded the first adult Neanderthal skeletons in Iraq, dating between 60–80,000 years BP.
The excavated area produced nine skeletons of Neanderthals of varying ages and states of preservation and completeness (labelled Shanidar I – IX). The tenth individual was recently discovered by M. Zeder during examination of a faunal assemblage from the site at the Smithsonian Institution. The remains seemed to Zeder to suggest that Neandertals had funeral ceremonies, burying their dead with flowers (although the flowers are now thought to be a modern contaminant), and that they took care of injured individuals. One skeleton and casts of the others at the Smithsonian Institution are all that is left of the findings, the originals having been dispersed in Iraq.
Read more about Shanidar Cave: Shanidar 1, Shanidar 2, Shanidar 3, Shanidar 4, The "flower Burial"
Famous quotes containing the word cave:
“The whole cut impressed me as if it were a cave with its stalactites laid open to the light.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)