Emma Pomeroy, speaking about the reconstruction and the burial context, consistently noted the distinction between what the evidence shows and what remains interpretation.

The pollen evidence is ambiguous.

The burial is likely intentional.

The flowers remain possible but unproven.

That careful framing tends to get simplified in popular coverage, and the Shanidar Z case was no exception.

But the underlying science — the physical reconstruction, the sediment analysis, the careful documentation of the burial context — remains rigorous regardless of how it gets represented in headlines.

What the reconstruction did, at a practical level, was make the science accessible.