But it addressed the contamination concerns more rigorously than previous work had, and it produced results that are harder to dismiss without engaging with the specific methods used.

The documentation of the burial cluster’s spatial extent and its evidence of repeated use over an extended period added a new dimension to the argument.

The flower burial debate had focused on whether flowers were deliberately placed with a specific individual.

The new work showed that the deliberateness of the burial cluster — the repeated, intentional use of a specific location for the disposal of the dead — was itself a behavior deserving analysis, independently of whether flowers were involved.

And Shanidar Z’s skull — more complete than anything from the site that Solecki had found — gave the site a new representative specimen, a new anchor for the story of who the Shanidar Neanderthals were.