Nestled within the rugged Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, Shanidar Cave is the emotional ground zero of Neanderthal behavioral research. Excavated by Ralph Solecki in the 1950s, the site recovered nine Neanderthal skeletons buried within deep layers of cave silt. It was Shanidar 4 , an adult male dating to roughly 60,000 years ago , that forever humanized the Neanderthals, challenging the deeply entrenched Western stereotype of these hominins as brutal, unfeeling beasts. [ REJECTED HISTORIC