SHANIDAR
LOCATION
Cave site in the Greater Zab river valley, Zagros
Mountains of northern Iraq, some 8 km SE of the
village of Raizan and close to the border with Turkey.
DISCOVERY
Excavations of R. Solecki, 1953 (Shanidar 7); 1957
(Shanidar 1-3); 1960 (Shanidar 4-6,8-9)MATERIAL
Complete or partial adult skeletons with crania
(Shanidar 1, 2, 4, 5, 8); without crania (Shanidar 3,
6); partial infant skeleton with skull (Shanidar 7);
infant vertebrae (Shanidar 9). See Trinkaus (1983)
for discussion of numeration and complete listing of
elements.DATING AND STRATIGRAPHIC CONTEXT
The Shanidar cave deposits are almost 14 m in thick-
ness, and consist almost entirely of Middle (Layer D)
and Upper (Layer C) Paleolithic strata. The thinner
superficial Layers A and B, Neolithic and Proto-
Neolithic respectively, produced numerous burials and
artifacts; but these are beyond the scope of this discus-
sion. Throughout, the (mountain) fauna is said to re-
semble that of the present day (Braidwood and Howe,
1960; Perkins, 1960; Evins, 198l), although warmer
and cooler floras are said to be represented in Layers
C and D (Solecki and Leroi-Gourhan, 1961). All of
the Paleolithic hominids derive from Layer D, withindividuals 1, 3 and 5 coming from high in the layer,
and 2,4, and 6-9 from the middle of the layer, above
an undated stalagmitic crust indicating a period of
raised humidity. Two radiocarbon dates from the top
of the 8.5-m-thick Layer D (Vogel and Waterbolk,
1963) are around 50 Ka (and nicely in series with
dates from higher in the section); but they are beyond
the reliable range of radiocarbon dating and probably
indicate a minimum age for this level. By extension
from these dates, Shanidar 1, 3, and 5 are generally
reckoned to be about 60 Ka old, while the lower series
of Shanidar hominids might date from around 70-
80 Ka. As Trinkaus (1983) emphasizes, however, these
dates are tenuous.ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
Level D artifacts are Mousterian, with little variation
recognized throughout this thick stratum (Solecki,
1963), and a high frequency of Mousterian points and
sidescrapers (Skinner, 1965). The closest comparison is
with other Zagros assemblages, in which Levallois
technique appears but rather rarely (Skinner, 1965). As
with lithics, hearths and animal remains are distributed
throughout Layer D, but two concentrations of occu-
pational debris are found. The first of these was uncov-
ered just below the depositional hiatus between this
level and the overlying Layer C, and it was here that
the upper series of hominids was found. The lower
concentration was found in the middle of layer D, just
below the lower hominid series (Solecki, 1963, 1971),
and it embraces the stalagmitic crust noted above.348