The streaming service Netflix announced on April 30 that the documentary Secrets of the Neanderthals will be streamed on Thursday, May 2, and will focus on the Shanidar Cave in the Kurdistan Region.
“Check out Netflix. A new trailer has dropped for a film we shot at the amazing Shanidar Cave in Kurdistan (and lots of other amazing places). Coming to a screen near you on May 2nd. Secrets of the Neanderthals,” Ashley Gething, the London-based director known for The Greatest Game, A World in Arms, and As It Happened: Pearl Harbor, said in a post on LinkedIn.
Sir Patrick Stewart will narrate SECRETS OF THE NEANDERTHALS - coming to Netflix globally on May 2nd.https://t.co/3RJ89Ir7o1 pic.twitter.com/H0piSX3a29
— What's on Netflix (@whatonnetflix) April 5, 2024
The documentary will be narrated by Sir Patrick Stewart, who became famous for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Netflix said in an announcement that this documentary delves into the “mysteries surrounding the Neanderthals and what their fossil record tells us about their lives and disappearance.”
So #SecretsOfTheNeanderthals is out in ONE WEEK- I was a consultant for doc's producers @bbcstudios, and I'll be in @UCamArchaeology on 2nd May with Dr Emma Pomeroy (Shanidar team palaeoanthropologist)
— Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes (@LeMoustier) April 25, 2024
for a live watch-along 5-7pm BST & taking Qs on here! pic.twitter.com/v5W0ayLKWj
Read More: Shanidar Cave: Unveiling the Ancient Mysteries of Kurdistan
The Shanidar Cave, located in the Zagros Mountains in the Barzan region, has been a rich source of archaeological discoveries – including several important Neanderthal discoveries – since the 1950s.
This site was first explored by Ralph Solecki (1917-2019) and a team from Columbia University. Within the depths of Shanidar Cave, archaeologists unearthed the remains of 10 Neanderthals.
Rebecca Wragg Sykes, a British paleolithic archaeologist, broadcaster, and popular science writer who worked as a science consultant for the documentary, told Kurdistan Chronicle that “Shanidar was the focus because it is a site that has an extremely rich archaeological record, with a high number of individuals, and some of the best evidence for intentional body deposition (burial).”
“But also it was chosen because it has a unique place in the history of archaeology, being excavated in the 1960s and extremely influential in changing ideas about Neanderthals, [It is] now being re-investigated with 21st-century methods that are already producing incredibly important results about more potential burials and plant-food processing.”
