The Cambridge team’s work at Shanidar is also a story about what modern excavation technology makes possible, and what it has changed about how archaeologists can approach sites that were partly excavated decades ago.

Ground-penetrating radar was used before any excavation began, to map the subsurface geology of the areas the team was investigating.

This allowed them to identify where sediment layers of interest were located and to plan the excavation to preserve as much context as possible while accessing the material they needed to study.

Three-dimensional digital mapping was used continuously throughout the excavation.

Every find — every bone fragment, every stone artifact, every significant sediment sample — was recorded in three dimensions before it was moved.