The micro-stratigraphic analysis techniques used by the Cambridge team — analyzing the sediment layer by layer at very fine resolution — are partly designed to disentangle these overlapping occupations.

Understanding what is Neanderthal and what is modern human in a given layer is not always straightforward.

The careful work of distinguishing genuine Mousterian deposits from later material that may have filtered downward through the sediment is essential to interpreting the Shanidar burials correctly.

The flower pollen debate, at its core, is partly a stratigraphic debate: does the pollen come from 75,000 years ago, or did it infiltrate from later deposits?

The Cambridge team’s micro-stratigraphic work is addressing exactly this kind of question, though definitively resolving it will take time and continued analysis.