addition to the usual pollen found throughout the site, suggesting that entire flowering plants (or at least heads of plants) had been part of the grave deposit. Furthermore, a study of the particular flower types suggested that the flowers may have been chosen for their specific medicinal properties. Yarrow, cornflower, bachelor's button, St Barnaby's thistle, ragwort, grape hyacinth, horsetail and hollyhock were represented in the pollen samples, all of which have been traditionally used, as diuretics, stimulants, and astringents and anti-inflammatories. This led to the idea that the man could possibly have had shamanic powers, perhaps acting as medicine man to the Shanidar Neanderthals. However, recent work has suggested that the pollen was perhaps introduced to the burial by animal action, as several burrows of a gerbil-like rodent known as the Persian jird were found nearby. The jird is known to store large numbers of seeds and flowers at certain points in their burrows and this argument was used in conjunction with the lack of ritual treatment of the rest of the skeletons in the cave to suggest that the Shanidar 4 burial had natural, not cultural, origins. Paul B. Pettitt has stated that the "deliberate placement of flowers has now been convincingly eliminated", noting that "A recent examination of the microfauna from the strata into which the grave was cut suggests that the pollen was deposited by the burrowing rodent Meriones persicus, which is common in the Shanidar microfauna and whose burrowing activity can be observed today". Despite his conclusions that flowers were unlikely to have been deliberately placed, Petitt nevertheless concludes that the Shanidar burials, because they happened over so many years, represent a deliberate mortuary practice by Neanderthals. Shanidar 5 The Shanidar 5 remains were found during the 1960 excavations, in layer D, about 4.5 meters below datum. He was an adult Neanderthal, thought to be male and around 40–50 years of age before death. He was caught in the same rockfall that killed Shanidar 1. Recovered were a cranium, 4 teeth, 1 vertebrae, 8 ribs, and miscellaneous other bones. The arrangement of the broken skeletal remains was thought to have been due to animals intervening after death. Radiocarbon results put the date at about 46,000 before the present day. Some years later a small correction to the original cranial reconstruction was found. During the recent excavations more pieces of Shanidar 5 were found The cranium of