Shanidar Cave • ئهشکهوتی شانهدهر • كهف شاندر
Nine Neanderthal skeletons were found dating between 60-80,000 years, in this cave in Bradost mountain. It was excavated between 1957-1961 by Ralph Solecki and his Columbia University team.
It yielded the first adult Neanderthal skeletons in Iraq. One skeleton and casts of the others are at the Smithsonian Institute in the US.
Several families (about forty-five Kurds and their animals) moved in annually during the late fall and winter months to spend the cold season in the cave. One might say that in ancient times the prehistoric peoples probably followed the same pattern as the modern Kurdish peasants, namely, favoring habitation along the interior walls of he cave and leaving the center and front clear. Solecki and Solecki 1993