Shanidar Z — The 75,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Woman Whose Crushed Skull Was Rebuilt From More Than 200 Pieces

But it was the beginning of an argument about Neanderthal social complexity that has never fully closed.

Then came the flower burial.

The Flower Burial: The Argument That Never Ended

Shanidar 4 was an adult male found in 1960, positioned among what appeared to be a small cluster of individuals.

Soil samples taken from the area around his burial were analyzed by palynologist Arlette Leroi-Gourhan, who found them to contain dense pollen concentrations from multiple plant species: grape hyacinth, groundsel, hollyhock, joint pine, and several others.

Many of the represented plants had documented medicinal properties.