There are earlier instances — ochre use, shell beads, geometric engravings — that push the origins of some symbolic behaviors back to 80,000 or 100,000 years ago or earlier.

But the consistent, widespread pattern of behavioral modernity in the modern human record is a relatively recent phenomenon, at least in the global sense.

Shanidar Z dates to approximately 75,000 years ago.

At that point, the Zagros Mountains were occupied by Neanderthals.

The modern humans who were beginning to leave Africa had not yet reached this region.

The behavioral modernity that we associate with modern humans was not yet globally established even within our own lineage.

If the burial evidence from Shanidar reflects intentional, symbolically meaningful behavior at 75,000 years ago, it places that behavior earlier than the consistent, widespread evidence for similar behavior in the modern human record.