402 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1954 



be pluvial in origin. Baradost Mountain looks down upon the Shan- 

 idar valley with a steep southwest-facing scarp attaining precipice 

 elevations along much of its length. Stunted dwarf oak trees dot 

 the landscape in the river bottom which has a rather broken floor of 

 some 114 miles in width. 



The valley of the Greater Zab River between Zibar, a village to 

 the northwest of Shanidar, and Shanidar village is constricted above 

 Gundi-Shkaft (an abandoned village site) at the Pira Sar Gorge. 

 The valley in the Zibar area above this gorge is called the Sapna or 

 Sapne Valley (Wigram and Wigram, 1914, p. 311). It is in the area 

 of this gorge, a scant 2 miles from Shanidar cave, that the migratory 

 Herki Kurds twice seasonally construct their log, branch, and twig 

 bridge across the Greater Zab River for their annual migrations to 

 the Persian mountains for the hot summer months, and return. It 

 seems likely that before the present road was cut along the left bank 

 of the river the only trail led past the Shanidar cave. In fact, some 

 groups of these migrant Kurds still do use this trail in preference to 

 the road. There are evidences of "Kor Pasha's road" below Shanidar 

 cave. This road, which leads from Rowanduz to Mosul (it is said), 

 was built by one of the Kurdish rulers who had his seat at Rowanduz 

 over a hundred years ago. 



Shanidar cave (Kurdish, Shkaft Mazin Shanidar — cave big Shani- 

 dar) is a solution cave in a dolomitic Qamchuga ^ limestone series of 

 Middle Cretaceous age. The color of the rock is a light gray-brown, 

 which erodes into a reddish-colored soil. There is a fault zone near 

 the cave with two well-marked fault lines, parallel to the axis of the 

 mountain folds. 



The cave is situated at about 2,200 feet (731.5 m.) above sea level, 

 or about 1,200 feet (365.8 m.) above river level. The Greater Zab 

 River may be seen a mile and a half from the cave (pi. 1, 6). Shani- 

 dar cave is in a sheltered nose of the Baradost Mountain, facing the 

 fcouth with a warm, sunny exposure, and protected from the winter 

 winds (pi. 2, fig. 1) . There is an intermittent stream which flows at the 

 foot of the slope to the west. This stream bed contains stagnant pools 

 in its lower portion during the dry summer months. There is a path 

 following the upper reaches of this stream through a steep valley to 

 Mergasur, a village on the east side of Baradost Mountain. It takes 

 about two hours to make this journey. A closer supply of water than 

 the intermittent stream is to be found in the springs up the gorge from 

 the cave some 410 feet (125 m.) by a well-traveled path. Water is 

 carried in goatskin bags on the backs of the present cave-dweller 

 women, as their forebears had probably done before them at Shanidar. 



"Called Qamchuga by the geologists of the Iraq Petroleum Co., and Judea 

 limestone by Hitchin (unpublished report of 1948). 



