Free Republic

Haaretz reports that Emma Pomeroy of the University of Cambridge and her colleagues examined the remains of Shanidar A, a Neanderthal of about 45 years of age who was buried in Iraqi Kurdistan's Shanidar Cave some 75,000 years ago. The researchers suggest that the individual had been killed when a weapon, likely a sharpened stick, was forced into his chest from the front, passed through a lung, and punched a hole in his left shoulder blade. Similar holes have been identified in fossilized animal bones. About a year before his death, this individual had also suffered facial injuries, including a...

In 2018, a female Neanderthal was discovered in the Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan. Now, archaeologists from The University of Cambridge have unveiled the reconstructed face of the 75,000-year-old woman, based on the assembly of hundreds of individual bone fragments recovered during excavations. “Neanderthals have had a bad press ever since the first ones were found over 150 years ago,” said Professor Graeme Barker from Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, who led the excavation at the cave where the woman’s remains were discovered. Neanderthals are believed to have become extinct around 40,000 years ago, and discoveries of their remains...

Scientists believe they have made a fascinating discovery which reveals some hidden detail about the diet of Neanderthals around 70,000 years ago. They have unearthed remains of what is believed to be the world's oldest flatbread made by Neanderthals in the foothills of Iraq. The charred remnants were recovered from the Shanidar Cave site - a Neanderthal dwelling around 500 miles north of Baghdad. The archaeologists said the findings, published in the journal Antiquity, show for the first time that bread was part of the diet among these hominid species....

One of the most important archaeological sites for our understanding of Neanderthals is still disgorging its secrets. A new skeleton has been found in Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan, and it's helping reveal how the Neanderthals dealt with their dead. Shanidar Cave is famous for what is known as the Flower Burial. Among 10 fragmentary Neanderthal skeletons unearthed there in the 1950s and 1960s, one was found with clumps of pollen mixed in with the surrounding dirt. This was interpreted as evidence that the bones - belonging to a man aged between 30 and 45 years - had been buried...