The broader lesson is that a Neanderthal skeleton is not simply a set of old bones.

It is a record — fragmentary and difficult to read, but a record nonetheless — of a life lived in a specific environment, in a specific social group, over a specific span of time.

Comparing the Shanidar Cluster

The individuals found at Shanidar Cave over the decades of excavation represent something unusual: a repeated pattern of apparent burial at a single location.

In the original Solecki excavations, nine Neanderthal individuals were identified, designated Shanidar 1 through 9.