612 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
vated, the whole skeleton could be examined in situ. However, after 
considering the dangers and risks of this plan, I decided on April 28, 
to remove the skull before attempting to dig down to the skeleton. 
In the removal of the overburden, some stones would certainly fall 
down the side of the excavation and possibly cause the wall to slump 
down carrying the skull with it. Furthermore, the necessity of using 
explosives to remove several boulders above the remains was foreseen. 
Actually three blasts were set off on May 11. 
In removing the skull, the most expedient means seemed to be to 
take the cranium and mandible out as a unit in a shell of plaster of 
paris, rather than try to remove each separately. The whole casing, 
when finished, looked like a huge egg, 76 cm. long and 45 cm. in diam- 
eter, nestling on the ledge. It was placed in a strong padded box 
provided with two long poles nailed securely on each side for carrying. 
On April 29 two men transported the priceless burden down to the 
waiting vehicle at the base of the mountain trail. The skull was 
unpacked at our field laboratory in the Shanidar police post and 
turned over to Maranjian. He gave it painstaking attention, cleaning 
it, mending breaks, and preserving it from further deterioration. 
Before any work was done to expose the skeleton, a number of 
observations were made on the profile of the cut, and photographs and 
sectional drawings were made. It was evident that the remains of 
Shanidar I had been sealed in an occupational stratum between two 
separate rockfalls, asin a trap. The earlier of the two rockfalls was 
represented by a layer 90 cm. thick. Shortly after reoccupation of 
the site following this rockfall, perhaps only a few hundred years 
later, there was another rockfall, dislodging about the same thickness 
of stones as earlier, killing our unfortunate Shanidar I man. The 
debris of stones sloped downward from east to west. The top of this 
covering above the skeleton was about 3.5 m. from the surface. 
Tt was decided to remove the overburden above the postcranial 
skeleton by incorporating the work in our established excavation grid 
system (fig. 1). The remains lay in the southern half of square A 7. 
The grid was extended over the area in four 2-meter squares, A 7, 
X 7, A 8,and X 8. The layers were excavated for convenience and 
control in levels of 25 cm. 
After Layers A and B were stripped off, a heavy occupational zone 
of the Baradostian layer (Layer C) was found to extend to a depth 
of 3.5 m., or to the upper boundary of the heavy rockfall deposit. 
The Baradostian peoples seem to have adjusted the cave floor to suit 
their needs, as there were abundant signs that parts of the floor had 
been scooped out and modified. Some flint flakes and fragmentary 
mammal bones were recovered at a depth between 3.5 and 3.75 m. 
indicating that some material probably filtered down through crevices 
in the rocks from above. An increase in the amount of yellow-brown 
