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A New Reconstruction of the Shanidar 5 Cranium

m. Chech, C.p. Grove, a. Thorne and E. trinkaus

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In 1960, during the last season of excavations at Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan, R.S. Solecki and co-workers discovered an adult Neandertal skeleton in the east wall of the excavation area1. This individual, identified only four days after the discovery of the Shanidar 4 remains, became Shanidar 5. As a result of the accumulated remains of the previously known Shanidar 1 and 2 partial skeletons and the Shanidar 4, 6, 8 and 9 multiple burial, T.D. Stewart left the Shanidar 5 remains unpacked in the Iraq Museum. The post- cranial elements were excavated and cleaned but not assembled, and the cranium was pressed against a rock and largely covered with a protective plaster and burlap wrapping.

When one of us (E.T.) became involved in the analysis of the Shanidar Middle Paleolithic human remains in 1976, the first project was to unpack and assemble the Shanidar 5 postcrania and to excavate, clean and reassemble the Shanidar 5 cranial remains in the Iraq Museum. The Shanidar 5 cranium

had been pressed up against a rock, such that only the largely complete frontal bone with the adjacent parietal bone along the coronal suture was evident on the surface. The largely complete left temporal bone was folded underneath the frontal bone, and the facial skeleton was fragmented and folded sagittally under the frontal and temporal bones2. In addition, several pieces of left parietal bone were arranged in the sediment up against the posterior margin of the left frontal squamous and anterior parietal margin.

The initial reconstruction in 1976 reassembled the frontal bone without distortion. The facial mask was reassembled with a slight transverse distortion, such that the midline is several millimeters too posterior as a result of summed angular displacements across multiple joins. This is indicated by the relationship between nasion on the frontal bone and superior root of the nasal bones. The temporal and parietal pieces were kept separately3.

Paléorienl. vol. 25/2. 1999. p. 143-146 € CNRS ÉDITIONS 2000

Manuscrit reçu le 21 septembre, accepté le 16 décembre 1999