The Fauna from Shanidar Cave : Mousterian wild goat exploitation in Northeastern Iraq

Reports on the faunal remains from the fourth and final archeological season at Shanidar Cave in northeastern Iraq were presented in 1964 by Dexter Perkins, Jr. However, the first three field seasons at Shanidar produced more sizable faunal collections, which have not previously been published. The following paper summarizes results of a study of the macrovertebrate assemblage from the important Mousterian levels excavated between 1951 and 1957, during which time the full vertical sequence of cave deposits was excavated. Wild goat was the primarily exploited ungulate at Mousterian Shanidar. The age profile of goats comprising the archeological sample appears to represent a pattern of catastrophic mortality