SHANIDAR
CAVE
![](shanidarcave.jpg)
Shanidar
Cave in Iraq
![](Erbil_governorate_shanidar_cave.jpg)
The
entrance to Shanidar Cave in Kurdistan
Location
: Erbil
Governorate, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
Region
: Zagros
Mountains
Coordinates
: 36.8006°
N 44.2433° E
Shanidar
Cave (Kurdish: Zewî Çemî Saneder) is an archaeological
site located on Bradost Mountain in the Erbil Governorate of Kurdistan
Region in northern Iraq. Anthropologist Ralph Solecki led a crew
from Columbia University to explore the site beginning in 1951.
With the accompaniment of Kurdish workers, the group excavated the
Shanidar Cave and found the remains of eight adult and two infant
Neanderthals, dating from around 65,000–35,000 years ago.
These individuals were uncovered amongst a Mousterian layer accompanied
by various stone tools and animal remains. The cave also contains
two later proto-Neolithic cemeteries, one of which dates back about
10,600 years and contains 35 individuals, and is considered by Solecki
to belong to the Natufian culture.
The
best known of the Neanderthals at the site are Shanidar 1, who survived
several injuries during his life, possibly due to care from others
in his group, and Shanidar 4, the famed 'flower burial'. Until this
discovery, Cro-Magnons, the earliest known H. sapiens in Europe,
were the only individuals known for purposeful, ritualistic burials.
The
site is located within the Zagros Mountains.
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 :
![](640px-Shanidar_I_skull_and_skeleton,_c._60,000_to_45,00o_BCE._Iraq_Museum.jpg)
Shanidar
I's skull and skeleton, c. 60,000 to 45,000 BCE. Iraq Museum
Shanidar 1 was an elderly Neanderthal male known as ‘Nandy’
to his excavators. He was aged between 30 and 45 years, remarkably
old for a Neanderthal. Shanidar 1 had a cranial capacity of 1,600
cm3, was around the height of 5 feet 7 inches, and displayed severe
signs of deformity. 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 individuals 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.
As
a result of the healing of his injuries, Shanidar 1 lived a substantial
amount of time before his death. If the Neanderthals did perform
surgery on Shanidar 1, this proves that their methods were successful
in sustaining life. Considering that all the injuries were healed
during this time period may lead to the reasoning that this individual
was kept alive for a reason. According to paleoanthropologist Erik
Trinkaus, Shanidar must have been aided by others in order to survive
his injuries. Due to all of the injuries and side effects of trauma,
it was very unlikely that this individual could independently provide
for his family implying he may have been kept alive due to a high
status within society or a repository of cultural knowledge.
This
evidence has led to speculation that the Neanderthals had some sort
of altruistic characteristics with the possibility of the presence
of ethos within the Neanderthal community. The discovery of stone
tools found in proximity to these individuals allows us to deduce
that the Neanderthals exhibited enough intelligence to make everyday
life easier for themselves. Maybe this knowledge surpasses basic
comprehension to include characteristics such as humility and compassion
which have the most known presence in Homo sapiens. These individuals
may have had the capacity to show empathy to others and come to
the understanding that life has meaning - causing them to want to
help Shanidar 1.
Shanidar
2 :
![](640px-Skeletal_remains_of_Shanidar_II,_c._60,000_to_45,000_BCE._Iraq_Museum.jpg)
Skeletal
remains of Shanidar II, c. 60,000 to 45,000 BCE. Iraq Museum
Shanidar 2 was a Neanderthal male around the age of 30 who suffered
from slight arthritis, found lying on his right side. It is estimated
that Shanidar 2 was 5 feet 2 inches in stature which places him
just below the average height of a male Neanderthal. He was killed
by rocks falling from the cave’s ceiling, which crushed his
skull and bones significantly. The skull had been compressed by
about 5–6 cm. Much of his bones were missing when discovered,
and the left tibia had teeth marks. Scavengers likely disposed of
parts of his remains. There is evidence that Shanidar 2 was given
a ritual send-off: a small pile of stones with some worked stone
points (made out of chert) were found on top of his grave. Also,
there had been a large fire by the burial site.
Shanidar
2 had a "higher cranial vault", and other skull proportions
that did not quite match up to the average Neanderthal skull. This
may prove that the Neanderthals of Shanidar had more of a "morphology
of anatomically modern humans" than other Neanderthals, or
that the group was very diverse. This points to similarities between
the two species, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, but it doesn’t
show any inherit "relationships within that species".
Shanidar
3 :
![](640px-Shanidar_Cave_-_overview.jpg)
Inside
the Shanidar Cave
Shanidar 3 was a 40- to 50-year-old male, found in the same grave
as Shanidar 1 and 2. A wound to the left 9th rib suggests that the
individual died of complications from a stab wound by a sharp implement.
Bone growth around the wound indicates that Shanidar 3 lived for
at least several weeks after the injury with the object still embedded.
The angle of the wound rules out self-infliction, but is consistent
with an accidental or purposeful stabbing by another individual.
Recent research has suggested that the injury may have been caused
by a long range projectile. This would be the earliest example of
inter-personal or inter-specific violence in the human fossil record
and the only such example amongst Neanderthals. The presence of
early-modern humans, possibly armed with projectile weapons, in
western Asia around the same time has been taken to imply that this
injury may have resulted from inter-species conflict. However, spears
produced by Neanderthals 300,000-400,000 years BP were likely used
as projectiles. Shanidar 3 also suffered from a degenerative joint
disorder in his foot resulting from a fracture or sprain, which
would have resulted in painful, limited movement. The skeleton is
on display at the Hall of Human Origins at the National Museum of
Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Shanidar
4, the "flower burial" :
![](600px-Shanidar_skull.jpg)
Shanidar
Neanderthal skull, dated to 80,000 – 60,000 BP
The skeleton of Shanidar 4, an adult male aged 30–45 years,
was discovered by Solecki in 1960, positioned on his left side in
a partial fetal position.
For
many years, Shanidar 4 was thought to provide strong evidence for
a Neanderthal burial ritual. Routine soil samples from around the
body, gathered for pollen analysis in an attempt to reconstruct
the palaeoclimate and vegetational history of the site, were analysed
eight years after its discovery. In two of the soil samples in particular,
whole clumps of pollen were discovered by Arlette Leroi-Gourhan
in addition to the usual pollen found throughout the site, suggesting
that entire flowering plants (or at least heads of plants) had been
part of the grave deposit.
Furthermore, a study of the particular flower types suggested that
the flowers may have been chosen for their specific medicinal properties.
Yarrow, cornflower, bachelor's button, St Barnaby's thistle, ragwort,
grape hyacinth, horsetail and hollyhock were represented in the
pollen samples, all of which have been traditionally used, as diuretics,
stimulants, and astringents and anti-inflammatories. This led to
the idea that the man could possibly have had shamanic powers, perhaps
acting as medicine man to the Shanidar Neanderthals.
However,
recent work has suggested that the pollen was perhaps introduced
to the burial by animal action, as several burrows of a gerbil-like
rodent known as the Persian jird were found nearby. The jird is
known to store large numbers of seeds and flowers at certain points
in their burrows and this argument was used in conjunction with
the lack of ritual treatment of the rest of the skeletons in the
cave to suggest that the Shanidar 4 burial had natural, not cultural,
origins. Paul B. Pettitt has stated that the "deliberate placement
of flowers has now been convincingly eliminated", noting that
"A recent examination of the microfauna from the strata into
which the grave was cut suggests that the pollen was deposited by
the burrowing rodent Meriones persicus, which is common in the Shanidar
microfauna and whose burrowing activity can be observed today".
Despite his conclusions that flowers were unlikely to have been
deliberately placed, Petitt nevertheless concludes that the Shanidar
burials, because they happened over so many years, represent a deliberate
mortuary practice by Neanderthals.
Shanidar
Z :
In February 2020, researchers announced the discovery of more Neanderthal
remains, which dated back to more than 70,000 years ago.
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Shanidar_Cave