This is not simply a logistical necessity.

It reflects an evolving understanding in archaeology and paleoanthropology that excavation of significant sites is not solely the province of outside researchers with institutional funding, but a shared endeavor that benefits from genuine partnership with the communities where the work takes place.

The science of Shanidar Z — the reconstruction of a face, the analysis of pollen and sediment, the genomic questions about who these Neanderthals were — is international science conducted at a specific place that belongs to a specific people.

Getting that relationship right matters for the science as well as for the ethics.