That raises the question of what other previously excavated sites might yield if revisited with the same approach.

Shanidar is not the only Neanderthal site where old excavations left significant material in place and where the analytical techniques applied to the original finds have been substantially superseded.

La Ferrassie, La Chapelle-aux-Saints, and other classic European Neanderthal sites have also been revisited with modern methods, with results that have complicated and enriched the original interpretations.

The pattern suggests that the era of discovery in Neanderthal archaeology is not over — that the existing sites still have things to teach us that their original excavators could not have accessed.

How Shanidar Z Changed the Conversation