Shanidar Cave
Neanderthal dead placed in a cave in Iraqi Kurdistan, one of them beside a cluster of flowers.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 25 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 10 thousand years
- Era
- Late Pleistocene, Quaternary
Shanidar has yielded at least ten Neanderthal individuals, including Shanidar 1, who survived a crushed eye socket, a withered arm and a leg injury for years — impossible without support from others. Shanidar 4, the flower burial, was found with concentrated clumps of pollen; the interpretation as deliberate floral offering has been challenged by the discovery that burrowing bees can concentrate pollen the same way. Renewed excavation from 2014 has found further articulated remains suggesting deliberate placement.