But the pattern itself — returning to the same cave, placing the dead in the same general area, over generations — implies a relationship between the living community and the location of the dead that goes beyond chance or convenience.

La Ferrassie in the Dordogne region of France offers the closest parallel.

At that site, eight Neanderthal individuals were found in a relatively restricted area, including adults of both sexes and children of various ages.

The La Ferrassie burials, like those at Shanidar, are associated with Mousterian artifacts and are interpreted by many researchers as deliberate burials.

The comparison is imperfect — the sites are separated by thousands of kilometers and tens of thousands of years — but the recurrence of the pattern across the Neanderthal range is part of what has pushed researchers to take the burial hypothesis seriously rather than dismissing it.

Shanidar Z fits into that pattern.