390 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 54 



outstanding discoveries of the two seasons' work at Shanidar cave are : 

 (1) the adding of a new archeological horizon to the ah^eady known 

 stratigraphical relationships in Iraq, and (2) the finding of the Shan- 

 idar hahj skeletal remains. The latter were found in the Middle 

 Paleolithic (Mousterian) deposits of the cave. The discovery of the 

 skeletal remains marks Shanidar cave as the possible site of the fourth 

 principal Neanderthaloid find spot in the continent of Asia — assum- 

 ing that the presence of the child's remains in the Mousterian deposit 

 gives it a right to be included in the Neanderthaloid category of races. 

 It is the first Paleolithic skeleton to be recovered in Iraq. 



The newly identified archeological horizon, represented by an arti- 

 f actual assemblage recovered in an Upper Paleolithic stratum, is called 

 the "Baradost" industry. 



The name of the present state of Iraq, or 'Iraq, which means "cliff" 

 in Arabic, was the name originally employed after the Arab conquest 

 to designate that portion of the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates 

 Rivers known in the older literature as Babylonia, in the southeast 

 section of old Mesopotamia. Iraq now roughly occupies that geo- 

 graphical portion of the Near East which was called Mesopotamia 

 under the Ottoman Empire, or the "land between the twin rivers" 

 (fig. 1). This is part of Breasted's Fertile Crescent, which has seen 

 the rise and fall of the civilizations of Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, As- 

 syria, Achaemenian Persians, the Greeks, and the later-day arrivals. 



PHYSIOGRAPHY OF IRAQ 



The major physiographic features of Iraq today comprise three 

 main natural regions. These include the eastern border of the Arabian 

 plateau (from whose eastern cliff like escarpment is derived the Arabic 

 name for Iraq) which forms the infertile desert region of western 

 Iraq, the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers between the 

 plateau of Asia Minor and the Persian Gulf, and the Zagros mountain 

 chain, which rises to 12,000 to 14,000 feet in altitude, enclosing the 

 Mesopotamian Valley in an arc to the north and east. 



The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the former with its larger tribu- 

 taries, drain the upper part of Iraq. The general axis of the area of 

 Iraq is northwest to southeast, following the line of the two major 

 river valleys. The lower part of the Mesopotamian plain is almost 

 tablelike in flatness, while the upper part of the country above Bagh- 

 dad has some topographical relief. In the north there is an exten- 

 sive dry steppe area with a healthy desert climate, something like that 

 of parts of the American Southwest. There is an unhealthy region of 

 swamps and marshlands in the south, bordered by a desert on the 

 west and the Persian mountains on the east. 



