474. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
them thus the reader should remember that the camera and stereo- 
graph record the object from slightly different viewpoints. 
To students of human paleontology the traditional aspects of the 
skull here shown will speak for themselves. Such significant details 
as the heavy brow ridges, the large flat face, the receding chin, the 
low forehead, the small mastoids (but large digastric fossae), etc., 
recall the forms of ancient man which are usually designated “Nean- 
derthal.” This is a term that no longer has an exact morphological 
meaning. In an effort at more exactitude anthropologists are now 
using qualifying words, such as “progressive” and “conservative” or 
“classical,” meaning closer to modern man and farther from modern 
man, respectively. Even this device is not wholly satisfactory. For 
this reason I am going to risk being specific and state that at the 
moment I am inclined to rank the Shanidar skull with the somewhat 
earlier Mousterian population of Mount Carmel in Palestine, as de- 
scribed by McCown and Keith in 1939. Within this highly variable 
population I would rank Shanidar closer to Tabin than to Skhil.? 
Be this as it may, the really significant thing is that an individual 
with such primitive features persisted in the mountains of Iraq to 
the end of the Mousterian cultural period; that is, to a time which 
Solecki estimates to be only about 45,000 years ago.* 
In a symposium on population genetics held in Cold Spring Harbor, 
N.Y., in 1950 I (1951) expressed skepticism that the variety of types 
encountered at Mount Carmel was due to hybridization between mod- 
ern and Neanderthaloid types, an idea then widely held. The primi- 
tiveness of Shanidar I and the late occurrence of this type strengthen 
my skepticism. I still feel that all these specimens could be variants 
of a local and durable population. In this connection it is interesting 
to recall Senyiirek’s conclusion, recently (1957) published in Anatolia, 
that the infant recovered earlier in the Mousterian layer at Shanidar 
is a distinct subspecies deserving the name Homo sapiens shanidarensis. 
Such generalizations are interesting and are certain to be debated 
in anthropological circles for some time, but ultimately their validity 
depends upon the quality of theevidence. Itis of primary importance, 
therefore, to raise immediately the question: How accurately has the 
Shanidar skull been reconstructed? In general, my answer must be: 
Not perfectly, but probably close enough for all practical purposes. 
Actually, the skull is far less complete than a first glance at the pic- 
tures reveals; also, it shows signs of injuries in life and has undergone 
*In making this statement I was influenced by the appearance of the posterior part 
of the skull. The face (including the supraorbital ridges) is every bit as primitive as in 
the ‘classical’? Neanderthals. Yet, when attention is directed to the back of the skull, 
one is inclined to qualify the designation “classical.” 
4 This figure takes into account Coon’s report (1957, pp. 306-307) of a Cy, date of 43,000 
years for the upper part of the Mousterian layer in the Jerf Ajila cave in Syria. Analyses 
of the Shanidar carbon samples are in process. 
