Neanderthal skeleton unearthed at famous site

[Vanna]

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 with flowers; a funerary rite. It contradicted our previous understanding of Neanderthals as animalistic, uncultured and unsophisticated.

But this interpretation was a controversial one, and others put forward alternative explanations, such as the deposit of the pollen by an animal.

A Stunningly Well-Preserved Neanderthal Skeleton Was Just Unearthed at a Famous Burial Site

 

[TexDanm]

More and more they are beginning to realize and accept that the Neanderthal and probably most of the other late-period hominids were more like different races than different species. The fact that most people of European descent have some neanderthal DNA proves it. Two species can breed but their progeny are sterile. The fact that we have their DNA means that they successfully reproduced. I think that the people didn't want to think that they were related to us because our early view of them was as almost totally subhuman because the first skeleton found was a very old hunched back arthritic old man. They misinterpreted his shape because of this. Those neanderthal genes may be important in the next ice age.

 

[Lynne]

More and more they are beginning to realize and accept that the Neanderthal and probably most of the other late-period hominids were more like different races than different species. The fact that most people of European descent have some neanderthal DNA proves it. Two species can breed but their progeny are sterile. The fact that we have their DNA means that they successfully reproduced. I think that the people didn't want to think that they were related to us because our early view of them was as almost totally subhuman because the first skeleton found was a very old hunched back arthritic old man. They misinterpreted his shape because of this. Those neanderthal genes may be important in the next ice age.

Good point. We don’t really know what things were like that far into the past.