Shanidar Cave - Barzan, Iraq - Signs of History on Waymarking.com

Shanidar home cave was inhabited first by Neanderthals - with a documented presence scope of 60.000 years - then by archaic Homo sapiens people with Upper Palaeolithic 'Baradostian' culture, then by Final Palaeolithic 'Zarzian' hunter-gatherers and then by Neolithic herders.

The place is permanently open to visitors. There is a good tarmac road leading directly there. By the parking there is a historical marker with text in English, Kurdish and Arabic and some images. The cave itself stands a 5 min walk uphill.

The English version of the text:

"Shanidar Cave is one of the most important Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) caves in the world. Deep excavations led by Professor Ralph Solecki (University of Columbia) in 1960-1951 found that the cave had been occupied first by Neanderthals, then by archaic Homo sapiens people with Upper Palaeolithic 'Baradostian' culture, then by Final Palaeolithic 'Zarzian' hunter-gatherers and finally by Neolithic herders. The most spectacular discoveries were the skeletal remains of 10 Neanderthals - men, women and children. One (Shanidar 1) had been badly injured as a young man but died as an adult, and another (Shanidar 3) had a healed would, so both must have been cared for by his companions. Most famously, fossil pollen in the soil around another skeleton (Shanidar 4) was interpreted as evidence for the body having been laid on a bed of flowers (the 'Flower Burial'), an interpretation now doubted.
Excavations since 2015 led by Professor Graeme Barker (University of Cambridge) have found further Neanderthal remains including an adult woman (Shanidar Z) placed immediately beside Shanidar 4. They were part of a unique cluster of at least 5 individuals carefully buried in the same part of the cave over several generations about 75,000 years ago. New dating methods show that Neanderthals were using the cave from at least 100,000 years ago to 40,000 years ago, when Neanderthals became extinct everywhere. In seasonal visits to the cave when the climate was like today they hunted ibex and tortoise, caught fish, collected seeds and nuts to cook on camp fires, practised a number of craft activities and even made 'symbolic' items of jewellery like beads. Shanidar Cave has shown that Neanderthal culture was far more complex than once imagined, making the possible reasons for their disappearance even more a subject of debate."

Group that erected the marker: G.E.G. URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link] Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary: Shanidar Cave Barzan, Iraq

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