Ancient protein analysis — proteomics — has emerged as a method for extracting biological information from specimens where DNA has not survived.

Proteomics can identify the species of origin of a specimen, and in some cases can provide information about the biological sex and age of an individual, from material that is millions of years older than the practical range of ancient DNA analysis.

Applied to Shanidar material, proteomics might recover biological information that genetic analysis cannot.

New dating methods, refined isotopic analysis, and new approaches to sediment and organic material analysis will provide additional data about the timing, sequence, and character of the burials at the site.

Whether those future analyses will resolve the flower burial question — the argument about deliberate Neanderthal funerary practice that has been running since the 1960s — is genuinely uncertain.