620 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
skeleton should be removed en bloc. Each separate bone could then 
receive the attention it required, and the whole skeleton could be 
studied at leisure. Therefore, I determined that we should encase the 
skeleton as it lay. Since the feet and adjacent parts appeared to form 
a reasonable unit, I decided to make them a separate package. The 
body proper, including the lower limbs, made another unit of manage- 
able size. On May 30, after the bones had been thoroughly coated 
with a protective film, we packed a sheathing of cotton and waste over 
the bones. Over this we put successive strips of burlap cloth soaked 
in plaster of paris. For rigidity and strength, a frame of wood and 
lath was put over and around the skeleton. After the top of the skele- 
ton was covered sufficiently, we undercut the remains, adding succes- 
sive strips underneath. A number of stones were encountered below 
the remains and had to be included in our casing. In this manner, the 
body of the skeleton was encased in one block, and the feet in another. 
The removal of the feet was a simple matter; that of the larger casing 
was quite another, necessitating the combined strength of seven men to 
raise it to the top of the excavation (pl.9). 
The following day, May 31, a team of eight men was organized to 
carry the larger cast down the trail. A four-poled rig of tree limbs 
was formed into a sort of suspension carriage, two poles on either side 
of the cast. A man was positioned at the end of each of the poles. 
It looked like the prototype of a knee-action vehicle. The men had 
gone no more than 50 yards when it became obvious that more man- 
power was needed. I had to send out into the fields to impress five 
more men into service. The portage went easier with the larger crew. 
The casings were boxed that night, and on June 1, at 5:30 a.m., left 
Shanidar police post by truck for the railroad station at Erbil, ac- 
companied by an armed escort of three policemen riding high on the 
box. 
SHANIDAR II 
The discovery of Shanidar II (field cat. No. 619 IIT; pls. 8, 9, 10), 
on May 23, during the last week of the season at Shanidar, was almost 
overwhelming. I had ordered one of my ablest Kurdish workmen, 
Mohammed Amin, to clean the west wall of the excavation for dia- 
graming. This was one of the last stages of our work before closing 
down the excavation for the season. Wall cleaning is done by peeling 
or scraping away thin sections in order to expose fresh surfaces for 
detailed observation and to facilitate distinguishing soil changes. In 
so doing, the workman’s trowel exposed the edges of several teeth at a 
depth of 7.25 m. from “0” datum in square D 8 of Layer D (figs. 1, 
8,9). The worker, being well trained, called me to the spot to make 
an examination. I could not decide immediately what he had dis- 
covered. ‘The teeth were barely visible in the section, but appeared to 
