At Shanidar Cave specifically, the ongoing excavation means that additional specimens may be recovered under conditions that allow for better molecular preservation.

Modern excavation protocols — rapid removal, cold storage, clean sampling procedures — can significantly improve the chances of recovering usable biological material compared to the conditions under which the original Solecki specimens were excavated in the late 1950s.

The science of Shanidar is not finished.

It is, in important ways, just beginning.

What Neanderthal Disappearance Actually Means

The Neanderthals disappeared from the fossil and archaeological record by approximately 40,000 years ago.

The precise timing and cause of their extinction — or more accurately, their absorption and disappearance — is one of the most discussed questions in paleoanthropology.