[6] Anthropologist Ralph Solecki, part of the University of Michigan Expedition to justify the Near East, first explored the site with a sounding in 1951.

[22][23] The remains found in the Shanidar cave are being reexamined to analyze the mortuary activity of the Neanderthal people who inhabited this area.

[24] Examinations of other sites will be integral in understanding and analyzing the activity of the remains after death of those found in the Shanidar cave.

[24] Additional work is being conducted on the faunal remains found in Layer D at the University of Chicago to analyze butchery activity.

Shanidar 1 had a cranial capacity of 1,600 cm3, was around the height of 5 feet 7 inches (170 cm), and displayed severe signs of deformity.

[29] He was one of four reasonably complete skeletons from the cave which displayed trauma-related abnormalities, which in his case would have been debilitating to the point of making day-to-day life painful.

[30] Severe changes to the individual's incisors and a flattened capitulum show additional evidence towards Shanidar 1 suffering from a degenerative disease.

A fracture of the individual's C5 vertebrae is thought to have caused damage to his muscle function (specifically the deltoids and biceps) of the right arm.

The arm had healed, but the injury may have caused some paralysis down his right side, leading to deformities in his lower legs and feet.

[30] More recent analysis of Shanidar 1 by Washington University Professor Erik Trinkaus and Dr. Sébastien Villotte of the French National Centre for Scientific Research confirm that bony growths in his ear canals would have resulted in extensive hearing loss.

These bony growths support a diagnosis of diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH), also known as Forestier's disease.

Assuming that Neanderthals did perform surgery on Shanidar 1, his recovery demonstrates that their methods were successful in sustaining life.

The prolonged survival of an individual with significant disabilities has also provided the basis for conjecture about Neanderthal social behavior.

The discovery of stone tools found in proximity to these individuals demonstrates that Neanderthals exhibited the intelligence to make everyday life easier for themselves, and their cognitive ability may have surpassed basic comprehension to include characteristics such as humility and compassion commonly associated with Homo sapiens.

It is estimated that Shanidar 2 was 5 feet 2 inches (157 cm) in stature, which places him just below the average height of a male Neanderthal.

[37] The presence of early-modern humans, possibly armed with projectile weapons, in western Asia around the same time has been taken to imply that this injury may have resulted from inter-species conflict.

Routine soil samples from around the body, gathered for pollen analysis in an attempt to reconstruct the palaeoclimate and vegetational history of the site, were analysed eight years after its discovery.

Yarrow, cornflower, bachelor's button, St Barnaby's thistle, ragwort, grape hyacinth, horsetail and hollyhock were represented in the pollen samples, all of which have been traditionally used, as diuretics, stimulants, and astringents and anti-inflammatories.

[44][40] However, recent work has suggested that the pollen was perhaps introduced to the burial by animal action, as several burrows of a gerbil-like rodent known as the Persian jird were found nearby.

The jird is known to store large numbers of seeds and flowers at certain points in their burrows and this argument was used in conjunction with the lack of ritual treatment of the rest of the skeletons in the cave to suggest that the Shanidar 4 burial had natural, not cultural, origins.

[45] Paul B. Pettitt has stated that the "deliberate placement of flowers has now been convincingly eliminated", noting that "A recent examination of the microfauna from the strata into which the grave was cut suggests that the pollen was deposited by the burrowing rodent Meriones persicus, which is common in the Shanidar microfauna and whose burrowing activity can be observed today".

However, this implication was overruled due to the fact that the curve was missing after the correction of a misplaced cranium bone fragment.

[48] The cranium shows signs of endocranial hyperostosis where plaques are found in the left and right side of the frontal crest and in the front area of sagittal sinus.

In Layer B, dating back to approximately 12,000 years ago, Ralph S. Solecki found numerous snail shells which may indicate the Shanidar maintained this diet for some time.