Shanidar Cave (, ) is an archaeological site on Bradost Mountain, within the Zagros Mountains in the Erbil Governorate of Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. Neanderthal remains were discovered here in 1953, including Shanidar 1, who survived several injuries, possibly due to care from others in his group, and Shanidar 4, the famed supposed 'flower burial', where pollen has been suggested to be the remnants of deliberately placed flowers."Shanidar Cave." Shanidar Cave | Unbelievable Kurdistan – Official Tourism Site of Kurdistan, http://bot.gov.krd/erbil-province-mirgasor/history-and-heritage/shanidar-cave Until this discovery, Cro-Magnons, the earliest known H. sapiens in Europe, were the only individuals known for purposeful, ritualistic burials. However, this has been questioned, with it being suggested that the pollen over the burial may be the result of natural processes such as bee accumulation.
Archaeology The Shanidar Cave site is located near Barzan, positioned about from the Great Zab river, and situated at an elevation of above sea level. The cave’s entrance is triangular, and the portal is wide by high. The cave’s dimensions are long, wide, and high.Solecki, R. S., "Shanidar Cave, a Paleolithic site in northern Iraq, and its relationship to the Stone Age of Iraq.", Sumer, vol. XI, no. 1, pp. 14-38, 1955
Anthropologist Ralph Solecki, who was part of the University of Michigan Expedition to the Near East, first explored the site with a sounding in 1951.Solecki, RALPH S., "Note on a brief archeological reconnaissance of cave sites in the Rowanduz district of Iraq.", Sumer, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 37-44. 1952Solecki, R. S., "A Paleolithic site in the zagros Mountains of northern Iraq. Report on a sounding at Shanidar cave. Part 1.", Sumer, vol. 8, no. 2. pp. 127-161, 1952Solecki. R. S., "A Paleolithic site in the Zagros Mountains, northern Iraq; Report on a sounding at Shanidar Cave, Part 2.", Sumer, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 60-93, 1953 He returned in 1953, under the auspices of the Directorate General of Antiquities of Iraq and the Smithsonian Institution, for another sounding. The first human remains, believed to be those of a Neanderthal infant from the Mousterian era of the Middle Paleolithic period, were discovered in 1953.Solecki, R. S., "The Shanidar cave sounding, 1953 season, with notes concerning the discovery of the first Paleolithic skeleton in Iraq.", Sumer, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 229-232. 1953
The next season, during 1956–57, Solecki and his team conducted soundings at two nearby village sites and continued work at the Shanidar Cave. Three Neanderthal unfossilized skeletons were found at the cave. One was nearly complete (Shanidar I - field catalog no. 504 III), one was fragmentary (Shanidar III - field catalog no. 384 III), and for one only the skull was excavated at that time (Shanidar II - field catalog no. 618 III). Archaeologists also uncovered the Neolithic remains of an infant and a female adolescent, buried with grave goods. The pair is believed to represent a mother and her child, who may have died during childbirth or due to a postpartum infection.Solecki, R. S., "Two Neanderthal skeletons from Shanidar Cave.", Sumer, vol. 13, no. 1-2, pp. 59-60, 1957Solecki, R. S., "The 1956 season at Shanidar.", Sumer, vol. 13, no. 1-2, pp. 165-171, 1957Stewart, T. D., "First views of the restored Shanidar I skull.", Sumer, vol. 14, no. #1-2, pp 90-96, 1958Solecki, R. S., "The 1956-1957 season at Shanidar, Iraq, a preliminary statement.", Sumer, vol. 14, no. 1-2, pp. 104-108, 1958Solecki, R. S., "Three adult Neanderthal skeletons from Shanidar cave, northern Iraq", Sumer, vol. 17, no. 1-2, pp. 71-96, 1961 Frequent use of explosives, up to eight sticks at a time, were employed in these excavations.
During the fourth season of 1960, a largely complete adult Neanderthal skeleton was recovered (Shanidar IV). Its state was considerably more fragile than the earlier specimens. While extracting it, the bones of another Neanderthal specimen, or possibly two, were noted and tentatively designated Shanidar VI. The former was presumed male and the latter female based on size. The badly damaged and scattered remains of one adult Neanderthal male was designated Shanidar V.
After the field material had been processed and analyzed, more Neanderthal remains were declared. Shanidar 9 was an infant represented only by vertebrae. The remains of Shanidar 9 were discovered during the removal of Shanidar 4 when encasing it in sediment block and transporting it to the Baghdad Museum. Shanidar 8 was an adult with a partial fragmentary skeleton. Shanidar 6 and 7 were skull, teeth and partial skeleton, all fragmentary. Shanidar 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 were found as individual burials, while the other remains were found in a single compressed block.Stringer, C. B., & Trinkaus, E., "The shanidar Neanderthal crania.", Aspects of human evolution, Taylor and Francis, London, pp. 129-165, 1981 Overall these excavations found the remains of seven adult and two infants Neanderthals, dating from around 65,000–35,000 years ago.Trinkaus, E., "An inventory of the Neanderthal remains from Shanidar Cave.", Sumer, vol. 33, no. 1-2, pp. 9-33, 1977 These individuals were uncovered amongst a Mousterian layer (layer D), overlaid by a Baradostian culture layer (layer C), a Mesolithic Zarzian layer (layer B) and a Holocene Neolithic layer (layer A), accompanied by various stone tools and animal remains. Reynolds, Tim, et al. "Shanidar cave and the Baradostian, a Zagros Aurignacian industry." L'anthropologie 122.5, pp. 737-748, 2018 The cave also contains two later proto-Neolithic cemeteries, one of which dates back about 10,600 BCE and contains 35 individuals, and is considered by Solecki to belong to the Natufian culture. Also, in 2018, Shanidar-11 and Shanidar-12 were discovered.
Recent work
Investigations were conducted in 2014-2015 under the auspices of the Kurdistan Directorate of Antiquities.Reynolds, T., et al., "New investigations at Shanidar Cave, Iraqi Kurdistan.", In: Kopanias, K., MacGinnis, J. (Eds.), "The Archaeology of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Adjacent Regions", Archaeopress, Oxford, pp. 357–360, 2016 Reynolds, T., et al., "New investigations at Shanidar Cave, Iraqi Kurdistan", Project Gallery, Antiquity, vol. 89, iss. 348. December 2015 The remains found in the Shanidar cave are being reexamined to analyze the mortuary activity of the Neanderthal people who inhabited this area. There are various signs of activity with the remains after death being that the position of the skull and mandible of Shanidar 1 were not natural. Examinations of other sites will be integral in understanding and analyzing the activity of the remains after death of those found in the Shanidar cave. Additional work is being conducted on the faunal remains found in Layer D at the University of Chicago to analyze butchery activity. Many remains found had cut marks that were caused by flint items which correlates to butchery practices.
Neanderthal remains The ten Neanderthals at the site were found within a Mousterian layer which also contained hundreds of stone tools including points, side-scrapers, and flakes and bones from animals including wild goats and spur-thighed tortoises.
The first nine (Shanidar 1–9) were unearthed between 1957 and 1961 by Ralph Solecki and a team from Columbia University. The skeleton of Shanidar 3 is held at the Smithsonian Institution. The others (Shanidar 1, 2, and 4–8) were kept in Iraq and may have been lost during the 2003 invasion, although casts remain at the Smithsonian. In 2006, while sorting a collection of faunal bones from the site at the Smithsonian, Melinda Zeder discovered leg and foot bones from a tenth Neanderthal, now known as Shanidar 10.
Shanidar 1
Shanidar 1 was an elderly Neanderthal male known as 'Nandy' to his excavators. He was aged between 30 and 45 years. Shanidar 1 had a cranial capacity of 1,600 cm3, was around the height of , and displayed severe signs of deformity.Lewis, R. Barry., et al. Understanding Humans: Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Archaeology. Wadsworth, 2013. He was one of four reasonably complete skeletons from the cave which displayed trauma-related abnormalities, which in his case would have been debilitating to the point of making day-to-day life painful.
During the course of the individual's life, he had suffered a violent blow to the left side of his face, creating a crushing fracture to his left orbit which would have left him partially or totally blind in one eye. Research by Ján Lietava shows that the individual exhibits "atypically worn teeth". Severe changes to the individual's incisors and a flattened capitulum show additional evidence towards Shanidar 1 suffering from a degenerative disease. Additionally, analysis shows that Shanidar 1 likely suffered from profound hearing loss, as his left ear canal was partially blocked and his right ear canal was completely blocked by exostoses. He also suffered from a withered right arm which had been fractured in several places. A fracture of the individual's C5 vertebrae is thought to have caused damage to his muscle function (specifically the deltoids and biceps) of the right arm. Shanidar 1 healed, but this caused the loss of his lower arm and hand. This is thought to be either congenital, a result of childhood disease and trauma, or due to an amputation later in his life. The sharp point caused by a distal fracture of the individual's right humerus points towards this theory of amputation. If the arm was amputated, this demonstrates one of the earliest signs of surgery on a living individual. The arm had healed, but the injury may have caused some paralysis down his right side, leading to deformities in his lower legs and feet. Studies show that this individual had suffered from two broken legs. This would have resulted in him walking with a pronounced, painful limp. These findings in Shanidar 1's skeleton propose that he was unlikely to be able to provide for himself in a Neanderthal society.
More recent analysis of Shanidar 1 by Washington University Professor Erik Trinkaus and Dr. Sébastien Villotte of the French National Centre for Scientific Research confirm that bony growths in his ear canals would have resulted in extensive hearing loss. These bony growths support a diagnosis of diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH), also known as Forestier's disease. This diagnosis would make Shanidar 1 the oldest hominin specimen clearly presenting this systemic condition. The researchers found these bone growths in multiple places all over the partial skeleton.
Based on the healing of his injuries, Shanidar 1 lived with them for a substantial time before his death. Assuming that Neanderthals did perform surgery on Shanidar 1, his recovery demonstrates that their methods were successful in sustaining life. The prolonged survival of an individual with significant disabilities has also provided the basis for conjecture about Neanderthal social behavior. According to paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus, Shanidar 1 must have been aided by others in order to survive his injuries. Due to the chronic effects of trauma, it was unlikely that this individual could independently provide for his family, so his post-injury lifespan may imply that he was kept alive due to his high social status or valuable cultural knowledge.