Talk:Neanderthal

Musical language

could someone specify how their language was musical? there are multiple things that this could mean and i have no idea wichC/AmnX 20:05, 24 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by DerBarJude (talk • contribs)

Elephant in the room

Am I the only one to notice that the supposed range of Neanderthals, i.e. Europe, some parts of central Asia and the Mediterranean/Middle East happens to coincide quite nicely with the traditional home of Caucasians? I suppose that mentioning races isn't very pc just now, but this strikes me as a little too convenient. It might explain why white folk have such a range of hair colours and eye colours not generally found in other varieties of human.

I hope no one mistakes me for a member of the far right - far from it! It's not entirely a flattering claim this! --MacRusgail (talk) 00:02, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe it is the elephant in the room, it is the foundation of the multiregional hypothesis or hybrid origin hypothesis. It should be noted that a variety of hair colors are found around the world in regions where there were no Neanderthals. unsigned - by User:Mpondopondo

Not really - I'm aware that red hair can be found in various parts of the world, such as amongst black Africans, Polynesians/Micronesians, but I don't know of any other variety of human which has such a wide variety of (natural) hair colour. The predominant human hair colour is black (or very dark brown), but in Europe, especially the north, other hair colours are extremely common. As far as eye colour goes - again, Caucasians have several varieties, whereas the majority of humans tend to have brown eyes (unless they are albino).

Personally, I think that the idea of Neanderthals as a different species is a modern one. Cro-Magnons encountering them would probably have considered them just another tribe, and seen them as different, but not another animal necessarily. --MacRusgail (talk) 12:06, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes it is true that Europeans have a greater variety of hair and eye colors than is found elsewhere. However the variant mc1r gene, which is related to hair and eye color, of the Neanderthals has not been found in european or any other human populations. In other words, the red hair of some europeans evolved independently and could be an example of convergent evolution. This is according to the University of Barcelona study.Mpondopondo (talk) 06:39, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm well aware about the red hair business (read it in this very article)... however, it does seem curious that the traditional range of white Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals fit together very closely.--MacRusgail (talk) 18:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily very closely. Neanderthals never extended into Northern Europe (Scandinavia) which is the likely region of origin of light hair colors. Mpondopondo (talk) 18:46, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Depends on the definition of Northern Europe. As I understand it, most of it was covered in ice until around 10,000 and pretty much uninhabitable. Northern Europe would have been colonised from central Europe, or at least but Circumpolar Peoples. It would have been difficult to colonise it from anywhere else. Across the icy edge of the north Atlantic, possibly. This letter from New Scientist discusses it although it mentions the red hair business.--MacRusgail (talk) 16:56, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Neanderthals evolved in Europe over a period of 500,000 years, there were several interglacials during this period. Northern Europe was not always covered uninhabitable.No evidence of Neanderthal contribution to modern humans Mpondopondo (talk) 17:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Scandinavia might be the likely origin of light hair as Mpondopondo remarks above, but Scandinavia is not th eplace of Origin of the modern scandinavians as far as I know. So a group of people might have picked up the blond hair gene somewhere and subsequently have gone to Scandinavia. With regard to red hair in Polynesia, some antrophologists/culturalists claim at least some of that to be the result of a european shipwrecking somewhere in the 16th century Ed 13-11-2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.159.150.163 (talk) 17:38, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The DNA evidence shows that the Neanderthals have no decendents, anyway. Their DNA is extinct, so this is all moot. Chrisrus (talk) 17:56, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

All this talk of DNA evidence despite the fact the genome project has covered what was it less then 1% of possible DNA combinations? The genome project is in its infancy as is our understanding of DNA. Additionally, Caucasian is an extinct phrase outside North America. It was based on incorrect assumptions in the early (?) 19th century and is no longer considered relevant to a modern view of race. Additionally, hair colour can be a result of many things. Its possible that if Neandertal & Sapien both have red hair they have it for the same evolutionary reasons and not from inter-breeding. HOWEVER these aren't the only traits we can use to point out similarities between modern man and his extinct cousins. Many people have much higher bone density, shorter tibia's, larger brow ridges, occipital bun's, barrel chests and many other anatomical features which appear in modern man are classic traits of Neandertal. Its my personal belief that until the entire Neandertal genome is laid out, fully understood and a Neandertal and a hybrid is cloned and walking among us we cannot disprove this hypothesis.--Senor Freebie (talk) 15:12, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the Neanderthals and Moderns in Europe would have evolved light skin, eyes, and hair independently of one another anyway. To me the issue is moot.Mtloweman (talk) 23:09, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

The Real Elephant in the room

I don't know about that, but I am confident that there is definitely “an elephant in the room”, namely the strange need of some to defend the Neanderthals against moral judgments of modern human sensibilities. I think it has to do with the Hobbes vs. Rousseau, visions of nature, if you know what I mean. Please try to "catch my drift": I have here a cartoon from the New Yorker of the classic "assent of man" parade of human evolution, in which the Neanderthal is screaming "Elitist!" at modern man. There was an ad for a show in the paper in my town recently called "Defending the Caveman." There are those strange Geico commercials with the same theme. Look at the descriptions of the popular culture depictions in the article. Look at the history of this article, and the touchy, emotional debate at times. Something wierd that has more to do with our own psychology than just facts is going on here, something that is interfering with a normal assessment of the cold hard facts. There are many examples in the article and this is what I think is behind many troubles with the article. For example, “Charges of Cannibalism”. Why “charges” instead of “claims” or “evidence”? No one calls evidence that non-hominid species eat each other "charges of cannibalism". There is something about the Neanderthals that makes them problematic in this way. Compare with other hominid articles, where evidence of cannibalism is simply accepted. Chrisrus (talk) 00:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

is it forbiden subject ? 71.201.243.75 (talk) 01:27, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Cannibalism among Neandertal's is not thoroughly accepted fact. Hell its not even an accepted hypothesis that Homo Sapien practiced Cannibalism in even instances that were widely reported by eye witnesses.--Senor Freebie (talk) 15:19, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Language issues

It's long been assumed that Neanderthal vocal tracts were not very practical - an idea receding just now. But isn't it worth pointing out that much of human communication even today is non-vocal? I'm talking about everything from facial expressions and body language right up to sign language. --MacRusgail (talk) 00:08, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't like this paragraph:

"Neurological evidence for potential speech in neanderthalensis exists in the form of the hypoglossal canal. The canal of neanderthalensis is the same size or larger than in modern humans, which are significantly larger than the canal of australopithecines and modern chimpanzees. The canal carries the hypoglossal nerve, which controls the muscles of the tongue. This indicates that neanderthalensis had vocal capabilities similar to modern humans.[48] A research team from the University of California, Berkeley, led by David DeGusta, suggests that the size of the hypoglossal canal is not an indicator of speech. His team's research, which shows no correlation between canal size and speech potential, shows there are a number of extant non-human primates and fossilized australopithecines which have equal or larger hypoglossal canal.[49]"

This paragraph seems to be stating two theories, the former favoring that homo neanderthalensis had language, and the latter disfavoring that neanderthalensis had language. This argument can go on and on, but I think it is safe to say that Neanderthal man had a "form" of linguistic communication although not as developed as we know language today. It's true that the hypoglossal canal in neanderthalensis can be the same size as in archaic and modern homo sapiens, but the focus of the argument should be on the hyoid bone also. The article correctly states that the hyoid bone of the Kebara Cave neanderthal is identical in size to that of modern humans. This may indicate that neanderthalensis was capable of speech.

Aside from the arguments of physicality, Richard G. Klein in 2004 doubted that neanderthals possessed a fully modern language because of the fossil record of archaic humans and their stone tool kit. Klein argued that by comparing the stone tools of the archaic homos and the modern humans, we could determine whether there was complex speech. This still remains controversial within cultural and technological arguments regarding neanderthalensis. In conclusion, Neanderthal man apparently had language, but probably not as developed like that of modern humans. --Ano-User (talk) 22:42, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

My problem with it is this: The first half, if you will notice, says that the hypoglossal canal in the fossils is evidence that they had advanced language abilities, but the second half of the paragraph says it isn’t. This is incoherent and self-contradictory. If the author’s intention is to describe a disagreement in the history of thought about this species, then this should be made clear from the beginning. As an English teacher with a layman's interest and knowledge of this subject, I am not qualified to make the edit, but I hope that the author of this paragraph, or another more knowledgeable editor, will clarify the point of this paragraph. Are we to dismiss this evidence or not, or is that still unclear? Chrisrus (talk) 00:07, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Recent National Geographic Article Should be Mined For This Article

This has lots of new information. Especially reporting of new DNA evidence. Proper citations should be made of course. 65.101.251.116 (talk) 04:41, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

It's a great article.[1] TimidGuy (talk) 11:20, 23 October 2008 (UTC) Also this one on from National Geographic on the evolving view of the Neanderthal.[2] TimidGuy (talk) 11:21, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Clothing

The pictures of reconstructions in this article show Neanderthals wearing clothing (cured fur?), but the article itself makes no reference to apparel. Could someone add at least a mention of what level of sophistication their apparel took, perhaps to the Tools section? — Epastore (talk) 19:57, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Clothing is perishable, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence in the archaeological record for the kind of clothing they wore. The recent National Geographic article says that they likely didn't wear clothing in warmer weather. TimidGuy (talk) 20:43, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Article Quality

It seems a shame that an important article like this isn't GA or even FA quality. I'm happy to help put in the work to bring it up, but is there consensus on what needs to be done? I saw the to-do list, but this doesn't seem to be a roadmap for getting a higher quality rating, but rather some ad-hoc thoughts. I know that there are a number of people who have put in a huge amount of work to the article, so I don't want to be seen as coming in from nowhere and complaining, the article is very good now, I would just like to see it shine. --Deadly∀ssassin 04:36, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Go for it! Would love to see this happen. TimidGuy (talk) 12:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Love to see what happen? I'm asking what needs to be done. :) --Deadly∀ssassin 06:18, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, as the comment below would suggest, the article needs a general assessment to see whether it's in accord with the mainstream view. Beyond that, one would need to examine the sources to see if they're accurate represented. Then, based on this, parts of it would likely need to be rewritten. No small task. TimidGuy (talk) 16:47, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Article seems to misrepresent current state of debate

NPOV very much in doubt. Article repeatedly implies that recent scientific studies (dated to 2006) demmonstrate significant Neanderthal ancestry in modern humans. In fact, the current scientific consensus is quite the opposite. The poster responsible for this has introduced dubious interpretations and argumentative language disguised as scientific fact. For instance, it's a unwarranted leap to say that a study finding ancient characteristics proves a Neanderthal component in ancestry. Similarly, the claims about a Neanderthal component to several archaeologically attested cultures known to be human is without scientific merit. I don't feel expert enough to post a good edit on this issue, but I'm well-read enough to know it's a fairly serious problem that someone needs to fix. It's reasonable for the interbreeding side of the debate to be acknowledged, but a truly neutral article should show that it is currently not held in high favor among most scientists. Ftjrwrites (talk) 22:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the article was greatly influenced by some aggressive, anonymous editors. Would be nice if you could give it some attention. TimidGuy (talk) 12:20, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Tools

There are a number of inaccuracies in the Tools section that need to be edited. For example, Neanderthal tools were not 'often' made using soft hammers. There is 'some' evidence for the use of soft hammers, yet hard-hammer use clearly continued. Other aspects of the tools section need to be edited, too, but Wikipedia will not let me make any edits. GopherGal (talk) 17:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

You should be able to edit the page. It's semiprotected, meaning that someone who hasn't registered can't edit it. But now that you have an account, there should be no problem. It would be good if you could fix these errors. TimidGuy (talk) 18:12, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

groups

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0005151 Genetic Evidence of Geographical Groups among Neanderthals by Virginie Fabre, Silvana Condemi, Anna Degioanni —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.15.127.200 (talk) 17:48, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Scientists "hope to falsify"????!

Scientists hope to falsify???

What kind of imbecile quasi-objective rendering is that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.65.194.10 (talk) 02:21, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

changed the sentence to "Scientists hope the DNA records will answer the question of whether there was interbreeding among the species."  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 03:40, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Cleaning Up References section in Neanderthal Article

Discussion copied from User_talk:Chris_Capoccia#Cleaning_Up_References_section_in_Neanderthal_Article
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Hi, Chris. I am a new user/editor who has just stumbled across the Neanderthal article. I mainly work with California Indian group articles, but have loved prehistory studies all my life. I find the Neanderthal article dis-heartening, having read some of the discussion that shows a long (and perhaps losing) battle to maintain neutrality with regard to the "inter-breeding" question. As a beginning contribution, I would like to tackle a rather neutral problem that would help people more quickly understand just who is being cited in the overall article, and who is being left out. Currently the article has both "Notes" and "References" but most of the references are spread through the extensive notes. I would be willing to repeat all of them down in the "References" section in standard alphabetical order by author, without changing the "Notes" layout at all for now. However, Wikipedia rules say each article's reference history is supposed to be honored by new editors. What do you think? Should I expand the references by copying them from the notes? Or will I get clobbered for ignoring some ancient edit battle? I also posted to "TimidGuy", a long term editor, with this question.Middle Fork (talk) 22:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I would rather see the items in the References section be moved into footnotes so that it's more clear what part of the text they are supporting. Right now, it's more like "Further reading" than "References". But I don't have full access to many of the items listed, so I can't say what part of the article they go with.  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 03:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Chris, I am very new as a Wikipedia editor and I am just learning about the rules and protocols. I am finding the Neanderthal article to have two huge problems. First, it is poorly structured, i.e. redundent. Second, two groups of scholars with very different opinions are using this article to make intellectual war on each other (which may be generating some of the redundency). I am not suggesting that footnotes, which tell you exactly which section "Tattersel 1997" is supporting, be eliminated. But I also want to be able to go to one place [References] and quickly see if all of the important "Tattersel" or "Torroni" or whatever authors and articles are even mentioned. It is the bibliography/references that immediately tell the expert whether or not an article is presenting all sides. It is impossible to absorb that kind of information from the incredibly long list of "annotated" footnotes in the present Neanderthal article. From the Wikipedia citations style guide:

Shortened footnotes are used for several reasons: they allow the editor to cite many different pages of the same source without having to copy the entire citation; they avoid the inevitable clutter when long citations are inserted into the source text; they bring together all the full citations into a coherent block of code (rather than being strewn throughout the text) which allows the list to be alphabetized and makes it easier to edit all the full citations at once (e.g. adding ISBN, DOI or other detail); and a single footnote can contain multiple citations, thus avoiding long rows of footnote markers.

Please think about this for a couple of days. Meanwhile, I have extracted every footnote from the article, and I am going to clean them up and build a "mock" bibliography for you and the other editors to take a look at next week. If I cannot build consensus for it, I will shrug and amble on. :-) Middle Fork (talk) 04:35, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

you can save yourself some trouble and just point to some other existing article that you want to mimic.  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 16:47, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Chris. No trouble at all. I am using the references I extracted to start my own personal Neanderthal bibliography. However, for examples of using footnotes and references in tandem, see Jomon Culture, which I had nothing to do with, and Ohlone, which I have been working with lately, but which was structured as notes/references before I entered the picture.Middle Fork (talk) 19:17, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

there are several problems with this method of organizing things: 1) the amount of clicks/mouse movements to go from a footnote link in the text to the actual document are much more. 2) the reference list has to be manually updated and maintained separately from the footnote list. 3) it encourages adding items to the reference list that are not actually used as references in the article. it also is difficult to tell which items in the references list are actually used in the article. currently, i can tell that only the items in the footnote list are actually used, and the reference list is more like further reading. 4) most of the footnotes are links to whole articles, and when i looked quickly through the list, i didn't see any books being cited multiple places with different page numbers. the main benefit for using this method is when you have many citations to different pages of the same work.  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 20:29, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Chris. I agree with your points, but believe that the positive points of an alphabetical reference section for Neanderthals outweigh the negative points that you make. However, I bow to you as a committed editor of the Neanderthal article. I will move along and try to help strengthen other articles that interest me. Middle Fork (talk) 21:43, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Citation in aDNA section

In the aDNA section, fifth paragraph, there is a citation needed for the Science Daily article published on 16 November 2006. The article is entitled "Neanderthal Genome Sequencing Yields Surprising Results And Opens A New Door To Future Studies" and can be found here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061116083223.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Djkernen (talk • contribs) 15:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

done.  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 16:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Y-chromosomal Adam != MRCA

The last bullet point under "Neanderthal extinction" suggested that Y-chromosomal Adam is the most recent common ancestor, which isn't true. I've revised the text to clarify. Mateoee (talk) 15:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Link to Aurignacian and Gravettian

I was reading this article about the Neanderthal and I was really surprised to see them associated to Aurignacian and Gravettian cultures, against everything I've always read in the past about it. After a bit of research, here's a source that support the view that aurignacian culture is associated with modern humans :

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/who-made-the-early-aurignacian-the-dental-evidence/

The more so with gravettian, of course.

Contributions/216.221.63.222 (talk) 19:15, 15 June 2009 (UTC) Luc D.

edit

The article is not editable. I want to add new data to this article because now it is substantially misleading . I don't understand why my simple (naive?) question, about time, when will be possible to add the data was deleted ? 76.16.176.166 (talk) 10:55, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Your previous edits to this talk page were reverted because they looked like simple test edits. The article is indefinitely semi-protected due to persistent vandalism. To edit the article you must create an auto-confirmed account -- read more at Wikipedia:Protection policy#semi. --Addingrefs ( talk | contribs ) 12:29, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Yea, I see some persistent abusers e.g. deer faculty Wapondaponda who bugged me round off. As you see he's been sprayed wikidead for good. So open it now.76.16.176.166 (talk) 14:30, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Wapondaponda (talk · contribs) was blocked for being a sockpuppet of a banned user. That has nothing to do with this page. Auntie E (talk) 16:00, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, then was no persistent abuser. Please open the page. 76.16.176.166 (talk) 19:58, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Neanderthal origins

I have read through this article, and did not find a clear explanation of the current theories of Neanderthal origins (even though there is a lot of detail given to theories of neanderthal fate / extinction). From whom are Neanderthals thought to have evolved? Are they descendants of homo erectus or of Archaic homo sapiens? Did they come from Africa like homo sapiens or did they evolve in situ in Europe? What is the range of current expert opinion about these questions?

Another very confusing thing:

• the article talks about the possibility that Neanderthals are a sub-species of homo sapiens (homo sapiens neanderthalensis)
• Yet it says that the Recent Out of Africa model of human evolution is the dominant model. (which posits that humans only left Africa ca. 60,000 years ago and replaced the neanderthals, who had already been in Europe from before 100,000 years ago)

How do these 2 things fit together? If the R.O.A. model is correct, and Neanderthals are found exclusively outside Africa, how can they possibly be a sub-species of homo sapiens? Tonicthebrown (talk) 11:09, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

The answers is in the genome. In Svante Pääbo's and Edward Rubin's research, the Neanderthals are found to be our closest genetic cousins. The studies state that 99.5% to nearly 99.9% of the Neanderthal genome is identical to ours. They are also not believed to have descended from Homo erectus; Erectus is hypothesized to have been an evolutionary "dead end." Homo heidelbergensis is generally believed to be the direct ancestor of both Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans; the ancestors European heidelbergensis were originally African hominids who migrated to Europe around 600,000 years ago, while leaving African heidelbergensis relatives behind. Neanderthals and modern humans both radiated from the same species, but in different geographical (even environmental) locations. This in no way violates the R.O.A model, in my opinion.

This is even why heidelbergensis is included within the archaic Homo sapiens category, and are sometimes termed Homo sapiens heidelbergensis. But many taxonomists prefer not to include them (as well as Neanderthals) within the same species as modern Humans. -Ano-User (talk) 08:44, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

sources

• Excavation of the Middle Paleolithic cave site Lakonis in southern Greece has yielded a lower third molar (LKH 1). Am J Phys Anthropol 138:112–118, 2009

In today's German?

The introductory sentence looks a bit mumbo jumbo and incoherent. The sentence should be more concise and less vague. It sounds and reads like its only extinct in Germany. Tdinatale (talk) 14:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, there is no way "in today's German" could be misunderstood as "in today's Germany" unless someone didn't notice the y at the end, which you did notice, but you're right that information about what N is called in modern German was superfluous and confusing. Someone just didn't bother to check a reliable source and instead sloppily deleted the valuable information that Neandertal is an alternative English spelling by changing it into superfluous and confusing information. The same person also deleted the most common US pronunciation, once again probably based only on personal (limited) knowledge and without checking any reliable sources. --Espoo (talk) 19:26, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Is it a reference to the German spelling reforms? Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 204 FCs served} 19:38, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Well yes and no. The spelling of words in th pronounced t was reformed to conform to the pronunciation in 1901 during the previous major spelling reform, as explained in the article at Neanderthal#Etymology_and_classification. And that's the correct place for comments about German spelling. The comment "in today's German" was however, as i explained above, not only superfluous and confusing in the very first sentence but was caused by a lack of knowledge about English spelling (and therefore resulted in deletion of this info about English spelling). --Espoo (talk) 20:23, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Not sure I quite follow, but I'll presume you know what you're doing, as I haven't history dived. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 204 FCs served} 01:21, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Hope it's clearer when described as a process: 1) Someone saw the explanation "or Neandertal" and thought that this is not a correct alternative spelling in English (because they don't like it or didn't know about it and didn't look in a reliable source). 2) The same person knew that the modern German spelling of the hominid is Neandertaler, so they thought that whoever added "or Neandertal" was confused and trying to say something about German spelling. 3) They added "in today's German Neandertal(er)", which removed the valuable info that "Neandertal" is a correct English spelling variant and added incorrect info about German. (Neandertal is the valley and Neandertaler the hominid so writing "(er)" in parenthesis is simply wrong when referring to the hominid.) --Espoo (talk) 07:13, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Word confusion

In the section Hypoplastic disease, this sentence is poorly worded:

Dental enamel hypoplasia is an indicator of stress during the development of teeth and records in the striations and grooves in the enamel periods of food scarcity, trauma or disease.

Perhaps the writer meant to say:

Dental enamel hypoplasia is an indicator of stress during the development of teeth in periods of food scarcity, trauma or disease, as evidenced by striations and grooves in the enamel.

But the original wording "the enamel periods of food" doesn't make sense at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dthomas218 (talk • contribs) 16:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Under the language subheading,

"The hyoid is a small bone which connects the musculature of the tongue and the larynx, and by bracing these structures against each other, allows a wider range of tongue and laryngeal movements than would otherwise be possible*. The presence of this bone implies that speech was anatomically possible. The bone which was found is virtually identical to that of modern humans."

Possible* needs to be changed to impossible.

That is all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougcard (talk • contribs) 02:58, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

No change necessary. Read again: "allows wider range than otherwise"; hence, without, speech is impossible. BTW, this, IIRC, has been "corrected" at least once before, by somebody who didn't actually read it, either. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 03:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah I see. Made sense rereading it. Still, the word may want to be substituted, seeing as how others are misreading it too. limited or reduced, maybe?Dougcard (talk) 05:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Not sure I see your meaning. "wider than the prevoiusly limted range"? I don't find it unclear, & changing it strikes me as not clarifying much, because then, the question arises, "What was the limiting range?" & possibly, "Is there a 'limit' range?" As it is, it's explained the hyoid is essential to speech (which I've always taken to be true). Unless you'd prefer a flat statement of same, which would require sourcing.... TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 06:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Numerous Errors in Classification

For some time, scientists debated whether Neanderthals should be classified as Homo neanderthalensis or as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, the latter placing Neanderthals as a subspecies of Homo sapiens. Genetic statistical calculation (2006 results) suggests at least 5% of the modern human gene pool can be attributed to ancient admixture, with the European contribution being from the Neanderthal. Some morphological studies support that Homo neanderthalensis is a separate species and not a subspecies. Some suggest inherited admixture. Others, for example University of Cambridge Professor Paul Mellars, say "no evidence has been found of cultural interaction" and evidence from mitochondrial DNA studies have been interpreted as evidence Neanderthals were not a subspecies of H. sapiens. A controversial study of Homo sapiens mtDNA from Australia (Mungo Man 40ky) suggested that its lineage was not part of the recent human genomic pool and mtDNA sequences for temporally comparative African specimens are not yet available.

1. The study by Paabo has been repeated, as of February 2009 Paabo (Science) concludes based on the genomic sequence that there was no recent admixture between humans and Neanderthals. This is reiterated in the recent 'Out of Africa' Series from PNAS. The conclusions that there was recent admixture was a mistake that resulted from bad assumptions made in defining TMRCAs for certain genes, and because there was cross contamination between Human DNA workers and Neandertal DNA samples. Paabo and Hublin claim they have cleared up these errors. At this point the other genetic studies suggesting admixture are immaterial.
2. The inclusion of LM3 in this section is inappropriate. LM3 was a gracile australonegroid individual who lived in australia and had no Neanderthal features. The sequence by Adcock has been criticized by many, and no further work to improve the sequence has been done. The base sequence Adcock's LM3 is a derivative of the mtEve sequence, Haplogroup M HVR region (partial) with an excess of T SNPs indicating cytosine deamidation, Adcock did nothing to prevent sequencing through the posthumous modifications and so it appears to be a Haplogroup M sequence with a number of posthumous DNA modifications. It is unlikely an early branch before the mtDNA Eve event and it is not a branch off the Neandertal DNA lineages. IOW the nonsense does not belong on this page, it is original research.PB666 ^yap 22:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
3. The above argument is an argument from ignorance. That Neandertals did not intermate with humans does not preclude intermixing with other late hominids such as Rightmires "Florisbad" deme which includes Jebel Irhoud and other hominids that transitted to and from Africa. Therefore the appearance of non-African DNA elements can potentially be explained by intermating from different Archaics, which probably excludes erectines and does exclude Neanderthals.PB666 ^yap 22:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
4. As of this month you can consider Neanderthals and Humans a different species.

Take your stinking paws off my surf ski

"Neanderthals appear to have never used boats or rafts, as evidenced by the absence of their fossils from North Africa" Since Neandertal evolved in Africa like the rest of us, I'm not clear why absence of rafts means anything. It's not like there would have been a big demand for rafts on the journey thru what was (at the time, IIRC) pretty heavily forested territory. Kind of like crossing the Sahara carrying a canoe. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 12:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Dear , Neanderthal in some places were involved in fighting and some places they established friendship. It was not an universal truth that either Neanderthals were Friend or Foe. Rather in some places they i.e. both Neanderthal and Cro Magnon, i.e. Homo Sapiense established friendship and only some places were busy fighting each other to earn their livelihood. Some time later we may find out Genes of Nearnderthal Humans in our Body. And if we donot or are not able to find out Genes of Neanderthal in our body , we have nothing to do except repenting that our ancestores our forefather perished them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.99.49.211 (talk) 12:24, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

new taxonomy up to genus

Neanderthal
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukarya
(unranked):	Opisthokonta
Kingdom:	Animalia
Subkingdom:	Eumetazoa
(unranked):	Bilateria
Phylum:	Chordata
(unranked)	Craniata
Subphylum:	Vertebrata
Infraphylum:	Gnathostomata
Superclass:	Tetrapoda
(unranked)	Amniota
Class:	Mammalia
Subclass:	Theria
Infraclass:	Eutheria
Superorder:	Euarchontoglires
Order:	Primates
Suborder:	Haplorrhini
Infraorder:	Simiiformes
Parvorder:	Catarrhini
Superfamily:	Hominoidea
Family:	Hominidae
Subfamily:	Homininae
Tribe:	Hominini
Subtribe:	Hominina
Genus:	Homo

The Legendary Lord Dimwitt Flathead (the excessive) 03:32, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Evidence of interbreeding among neanderthals and early modern humans

There is relatively new evidence that early modern humans interbred with neanderthals as suggested by their skull structures. Fossils of early modern humans have been found to have traits that are not unique to either one.

Trinkaus, E. (2007). European early modern humans and the fate of the Neandertals. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 104(18), 7367-7372. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.150.48.168 (talk) 21:47, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I had understood that they'd collected and analyzed enough Neanderthal DNA to conclusivly prove that none of their DNA survives today. Chrisrus (talk) 04:03, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a citation? As far as I know there is only one sample of neanderthal DNA and that a study doing a comparison came to your said conclusion, however most people question the validity not only in terms of stats and sampling but motive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.100.219.69 (talk) 01:22, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think this is it:

Neandertal DNA Sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans Cell, Volume 90, Issue 1, Pages 19-30 Matthias Krings1, Anne Stone2, Ralf W. Schmitz3, Heike Krainitzki4, Mark Stoneking2 and Svante Pääbo, , 1

1 Zoological Institute, University of Munich, PO Box 202136, D-80021, Munich, Germany

2 Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

3 Rheinisches Amt für Bodendenkmalpflege, Endenicher Strasse 133, D-53115, Bonn, Germany

4 Höhere Berufsfachschule für, präparationstechnische Assistenten, Markstrasse 185, D-44799, Bochum, Germany

Abstract DNA was extracted from the Neandertal-type specimen found in 1856 in western Germany. By sequencing clones from short overlapping PCR products, a hitherto unknown mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequence was determined. Multiple controls indicate that this sequence is endogenous to the fossil. Sequence comparisons with human mtDNA sequences, as well as phylogenetic analyses, show that the Neandertal sequence falls outside the variation of modern humans. Furthermore, the age of the common ancestor of the Neandertal and modern human mtDNAs is estimated to be four times greater than that of the common ancestor of human mtDNAs. This suggests that Neandertals went extinct without contributing mtDNA to modern humans."

Ok, this appears to be the link: [3]

Here is a very readable report from a reputable science magazine: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10275-neanderthal-dna-illuminates-split-with-humans.html Chrisrus (talk) 06:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Magazines are a great read, but the language they use is ambiguous. There is alot of evidence that suggests interbreeding between neanderthals and early modern humans occurred. The evidence is beyond simply denying it ever happened, however does it suggest significant breeding? No. Regardless the question now is just how much interbreeding occurred not whether it happened. Of course its also well known that there is a ton of resistance to the idea, including the Church who usually try to skewer scientific results of evolutionary claims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.150.48.162 (talk) 18:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

A genetic analysis of nearly 2,000 people from around the world indicates that such extinct species interbred with the ancestors of modern humans twice, leaving their genes within the DNA of people today. (Study by Jeffrey Long et al, presented 2010-04-17) Pääbo's earlier studies on components of Neanderthal genomes largely ruled out interbreeding, but they were not based on more comprehensive analyses of the complete genome.(Nature 2010-04-20) If "the question now is just how much interbreeding occurred not whether", why does the Wikipedia article seem to rule it out entirely?--87.162.9.105 (talk) 17:42, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the article on Neanderthals seem a bit biased on the subject in question. But it is relying mostly (if not only) on the evidence presented by Svante Pääbo's research. If the DNA sequences confirmed over a 99% commonality between the Neanderthal and modern human genomes why wouldn't it have been possible to interbreed? I don't think the question should be "could they interbreed?", but "how likely would it have been that they would have interbred?" Just an opinion. -Ano-User (talk) 09:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Given that sapiens and neanderthals co-existed in time and possibly in geography, had they gone to "war" with each other, would the victors have kept the defeated as slaves, and possibly interbred? 86.183.0.173 (talk) 20:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Pääbo himself now agrees that there is strong evidence for interbreeding [4]. His old view that there was no significant interbreeding shouldn't be cited as the state of research when the current evidence suggests otherwise. --87.162.15.84 (talk) 01:40, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia reacted at last. It wouldn't have taken three weeks if the article hadn't been edit protected.--90.186.59.108 (talk) 17:30, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Fix the link

Near the beginning of the "Extinction" section is what is supposed to be a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Africa_theory, but it currently links to the book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Africa —Preceding unsigned comment added by HooKooDooKu (talk • contribs) 21:29, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean. I've fixed it, thank you for pointing that oversight out. Chrisrus (talk) 07:08, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Neanderthal and Nephilim are They the Same?

Does the evidence support linking the Neanderthals to the Nephilim?

The criteria associated with Neanderthals can equally be applied to the Nephilim situation. 1a. Neanderthals had brains as large if not larger than humans. 1b. Nephilim were Hybrid of two intelligent races; a large brain size could be anticipated.

2a. Neanderthals were well muscled with highly developed physiques. 2b. Nephilim would have inherited these common hybrid vigour characteristics.

3a. Neanderthals had distinctive characteristics (flattened cranium, heavy ridge above large eye sockets) 3b. Nephilim were only half-caste with human, characteristics being acquired from both parents.

4a. Neanderthals appeared after humans had been around for a long time. 4b. Nephilim started breeding some 1400 years after humans started populating the earth.

5a. Neanderthals and Humans coexisted, sharing living space for a period. 5b. Nephilim inhabited the earth alongside humans for 120 years.

6a. Neanderthals were skilled in tool and weapon making. 6b. Nephilim learnt physical skills and human culture from human mothers.

7a. Neanderthal were a battle scarred warrior race. 7b. Nephilim aggressive tyranny filled the earth with violence & blood shed.

8a. Neanderthals were skilled in language, spoken and written. 8b. Nephilim communicated freely with the human populus.

9a. Neanderthals were cultured in music and musical instrument making. 9b. Nephilim as an intelligent half-caste human hybrid had no problem mastering such skills.

10a. Neanderthals had general culture similar but not the same as humans. 10b. Nephilim inherited part human culture from mothers and part from metamorphosed fathers.

11a. Neanderthal practiced burial of the dead and religious rituals. 11b. Nephilim had an intelligent awareness with which to learn theoretical concepts, some may have been unknown to humans at that point but revealed to the Nephilim by their fathers. This cosmic knowledge awareness when handed down through later human generations may explain the seemingly high level of religious thought connected with intercommunications between the heavens and the earth as practiced by the early civilizations particularly the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, many of which we still do not understand to this day, ie mechanisms of electric batteries found in ancient Babylon, the interiors of the Giza pyramids etc etc.

12a. Neanderthal possibly possessed medical skills, practicing apothecary and, aromatherapy. 12b. Nephilim were intelligent, able to develop advanced skills, see 11b.

13a. Neanderthals lived in warm temperate climates. 13b. Nephilim also lived in warm temperate climate before the deluge changed it.

14a. Neanderthal revealed possible hybrid ’vigour’ characteristics. 14b. Nephilim were a hybrid half-breed race with strength greater than humans.

15a. Neanderthal coexisting with humans 4,400 years ago according to corrected C14 dating. 15b. Nephilim according to the chronological manuscripts lived during this same time period.

16a. Neanderthals were exterminated suddenly, humans continued on. 16b. Nephilim because of degenerating the earth and the human race, were exterminated by a cataclysmic world deluge caused by bringing down of the protective water vapour layer while the human race was preserved. Felisberto (talk) 20:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good premise for a sci-fi or fantasy story, but this is a science article. thx1138 (talk) 20:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The Nephilim? I think mixing biblical myth and science isn't going to work. Fences&Windows 02:58, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of science, the article has a section on Neanderthals in popular culture. Would that be a good place to mention Colin Wilson's book Atlantis and the Kingdom of the Neanderthals--Richardson mcphillips (talk) 19:06, 21 November 2009 (UTC)?

Significance of the Uniqueness of the Neanderthal Nasal Cavity

With regard to this RS, http://www.pnas.org/content/93/20/10852.full.pdf+html, I would like someone else to read it if you can. It seems to be saying that the interior nasal cavity of these Neanderthal skulls shows some pretty amazing interior nasal adaptations which are radically different from not only those of Humans, not only different from those of other homonids, but from any other known primate. Therefore, that huge nasal hole in the front of the skull would have housed a cartilaginous nasal protuberance that would not have been basically the same as the human ones used in reconstructions such as the cute little boy that introduces the “Anatomy” section of this article. This is significant also because it adds additional evidence to the arguement that Homo Neanderthalensis is the right way to think of them, instead of Homo sapiens; that is to say, the Neanderthal are neither our ancestors nor a type of human being, but rather a close cousin of human beings with characteristics of a wholly different animal. Please review this and comment before I add this to the article. Chrisrus (talk) 16:49, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

It's quite an old finding, so there must be newer views on this. The article is well cited. I found an argument disputing the findings of the article, also in PNAS: "the unique phylogenetic and adaptive 'specializations' attributed to Neandertal internal nasal structures are unwarranted."[5] Fences&Windows 22:12, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for this. Do you think you'd like to help us lay out the arguments for the "subspecies" theory on the one hand and the "separate species" theory on the other, in a perhaps more complete and well orgainized way? (See discussion, below). Chrisrus (talk) 22:21, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Laying out the Great Neanderthal Debate

As this article agrees, one of the most important things that a reader should know about the Neanderthals is the fact that there is a debate in the sources as to the fundemental nature of the neanderthals: were they a distinct species of animal, or a type of human being. I am somewhat dissatisfied, however, that this debate is not clearly set out enough. We need to hear words to the effect of "This is the arguement of position A: such and such evidence shows that A is true and B false. This is the arguement of position B: such and such evidence shows that B is true and A false. I'm not saying that this is not at all done in the article, I just don't think it's all laid out clearly and as completely as appropriate. I want to start work on this soon, so please comment as soon as you can. I'm looking to collect the evidence here and then transfer it to the article. Chrisrus (talk) 17:16, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I incline to agree. There seems to be a supposition H. neanderthalensis is ancestral to H. sap., which the PNAS paper you mentioned above seems to bely. (My admittedly layman's reading suggests a much more distant ancestor for both, tho I continue to believe we're "cousins".) I'd support a much more strongly worded statement of "separateness", if only to encourage readers & editors to leave aside their preconceptions. Or, put another way, Neadertal does not equal caveman (no matter what the insurance industry would have you think). TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 18:51, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

It is interesting that you should mention the archeotype of the caveman. I have been interested in the article caveman, which I have been working on but which still needs more work, please feel free to help with that. By saying "neandertal does not equal caveman", you seem to be saying "Neandertals were not our ancestors" but as that article tries at times to make clear, the archeotype of the caveman seems very often to conflate the neandertals and us, sometimes meaning a "Neandertalish," if you will, character, and sometimes something more "Cro-Magnonish", as it were, and sometimes (as is the case with the Geico cavemen, as I see it) elements of both, or perhaps Homo Erectus or something. That article refers to "the real elephant in the room" as I called it, above, the significance of our conception of Homo species as a "nobal savage" or as "nature red in tooth and claw". The preceding is intended to encourage interest by paleologically-inclinded editors to become interested in improving that article, as it has a tendency to attract editors interested in debunking cultural sterotypes more than setting the record straight with regard to evidence from paleo-anthropology.

About this article, however, I am envisioning a section or paragraph dedicated to the evidence and arguement in the reliable sources for the "Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis" theory, followed by another section or paragraph listing the same for the "Homo neanderthalensis" theory. The readers could then be able to weigh the evidence as we know it and decide for themselves and come to their own conclusions. Or perhaps a sub-article, if it gets too big. What do you think? Chrisrus (talk) 19:44, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anything in the article that suggests Neanderthal is a ancestral to H. sapiens, other than to discuss the interbreeding hypothesis which it notes has little acceptance. The first paragraph and the classification section dicsuss the debate about whether it is a subspecies of H. sapiens or a separate species within the genus Homo. thx1138 (talk) 20:59, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I think there's a lot of confusion on the issue. In the popular mind (& I wouldn't exclude mine entirely), there's a perception Neandertal is ancestral, & the caveman stereotype, plus the "brute Neadertal" depictions, don't help clear it up. I'd welcome a clear statement of "not". I wouldn't be averse to clearing up whether Cro-Magnon was less brutal & violent than sometimes portrayed, either (tho maybe not here...). If we can separate H. nean. from H. sap. here, I think we can also avoid some of the debunking tendencies, since we'd no longer be dealing with a direct ancestor (however ancient), & we can treat H. nean. as we would gorillas or chimps; AFAIK, nobody thinks we should avoid mention of cannibalism among them. (Or is it cannibalism, technically, if people aren't actually involved? Another can of worms... ;D ) Moreover, once we've done that, it ceases to be about us (however indirectly), which strikes me is the problem with the debunkers to begin with. (And I'm not immune to that, either.) TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 21:11, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for this response. For the moment I'd just like to mention that the stuff about waltzing around the canibalism with the "ritual defleashing" take on the evidence, that stuff that I had written about the "elephant" in the room, I just want to say that it has much improved in this article since I wrote that, thanks to several editors, "Martin-somebody" comes to mind, for example. Chrisrus (talk) 08:38, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

As a response to the question from Trekphiler about cannibalism: Cannibalism is the consumption of the flesh of a member of one's own species, no matter what that species is. A human who eats human flesh is a cannibal, but so is a lion that eats another lion. The eating of human flesh by members of other species is known as anthropophagy. Khajidha (talk) 21:57, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Given that it's looking like Neanderthals were a separate species, it's therefore not be cannibalism for them to eat us but rather only if they ate others of their own kind, which they apparently did. Unless, as might be the case, the word "cannibalism" just refers to our species, which it originally did, but I've heard documentaries on TV apply the word to other species, even insects. I've seen where lions kill their own kind, but not where they've eaten them. They just leave them lying there. This is not called "murder", to my knowledge. Chrisrus (talk) 23:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

None of the dictionaries I've ever used has limited cannibalism to human on human behavior. If that was the original meaning, it has long since been changed. The lion comment was just a random species for illustrative purposes, not a reference to any known behavior of lions. Khajidha (talk) 23:07, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

can⋅ni⋅bal⋅ism  /ˈkænəbəˌlɪzəm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [kan-uh-buh-liz-uhm] Show IPA –noun 1. the eating of human flesh by another human being. 2. the eating of the flesh of an animal by another animal of its own kind. 3. the ceremonial eating of human flesh or parts of the human body for magical or religious purposes, as to acquire the power or skill of a person recently killed. 4. the act of pecking flesh from a live fowl by a member of the same flock. 5. the removal of parts, equipment, assets, or employees from one product, item, or business in order to use them in another. 6. the acquisition and absorption of smaller companies by a large corporation or conglomerate.

Just the first entry I found off of dictionary.com. A couple of points.

Definition one is the way the word started, according to the article Cannibalism and it's sources, all of which use it that way. The word is descended from the same source as the word "Caribbean". It's Arawak, who were the ones Columbus first met. They used it to refer to their enemies to the south, the Caribs, who had relatively recently come up from South America and had replaced the Arawak on the Southern Islands and I guess must have meant "people eater" in Arawak. Then it became a common meaning in Spanish and then English. Then Def. One became an anthopological, technical definition, too. Replacing "androphagy", which is Greek. I don't think there is an Anglo or Norman word for it, but I bet our linguistic ancestors weren't unfamiliar with the practice and must have called it something. Knowing the Saxons, it was probably some crude combination of words.

Definition two was a natural evolution of the word, it seems to me. It just came to mind quickly when zoologists needed a word for that phenomenon. I don't think there is or was a Latin or Greek word that would cover both man eat man and dog eat dog. People ceized on "cannibalism" right away as the best word for eating one of your own species. Today I still don't think there is another word for intra-species eating. I don't know how I would find out, either. So it's definately the #1 word for #2, if not the only word for definition two. But that's exacly the problem as it's still a number 2 definition for the word and we havno article on Wikipedia for number 2, probably as a result. That's also the reason we are having this conversation right now; we don't have a word other than "Cannibalism" for eating another of your species, much less your genus, but that's not what the main article "cannibalism" should be about, it should be about #1, at least primarily, and it is, but no one has mentioned #2 in that article yet, except some Neanderthal stuff, probably as a holdover from the days when people thought they were ancient humans instead a different, cousin species, which is the way the neanderthal thinking is now as of really recently. So here we are, wondering what to do.

Number three, I don't understand how that's distinct from number one, actually. Why, because of the motivation? It seems to me to be just one reason definition number one happens. I think they should remove this definition, it's not helpful or needed and no one is going to use it. I must be wrong about that but don't know why. I bet most other dictionaries don't have it.

Number four looks like a technical term from the chicken industry, and I bet it's needed and used by those people all the time. There could be an article about it, I bet papers have been written at some Argicultural Department somewhere. You can imagine why the word was adopted, but I think it's metaphorical, and the people who use it realize it's distinct from and metaphorical of number one, like defitions five and six; clear metaphors. I could be wrong about #4, as a specific type of #2, maybe its not as metaphorical as five and six.

Finally, where is the definition as a crime? Legal dictionary, anyone?

• This debate over the definition of 'cannibalism' is pure semantics, and will get us nowhere in improving this article. Fences&Windows 02:28, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. And it was more a rhetorical issue for me, anyhow, than a substantive issue. (I certainly never anticipated so much verbiage on it! 8o) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 03:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Doctor my legs

I reworded "fewer injuries" to "lower rate of injury". Can this be supported by the sources? Or is "fewer" (as originally used) a quantitative measure not related to rate of injury?

On an unrelated note, the Chatelperronian 'graph could use some work. Is it trying to say Neandertals were incompetent by comparison, or were they expert at the Neolithic's version of reverse engineering? The latter suggests a dietary variation, to me: it's lazy, & predators are notoriously lazy. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 00:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I originally added the paragraph about the Neanderthals getting fewer injuries. The Neanderthals were going down a road where physical adaptation was more important than psychological adaptation in getting food/survival. But their 400,000 to 600,000 year separation from us was too short to take them too far down that line. Natural selection is not particularly concerned with individual survival as long as the individual reproduces.

As for the Chatelperronian, I brought that up too. Maybe the Neanderthals just had less spare time, and maybe due to their psychology art and decoration were less important. Also the Cro-Magnon bands were bigger and obviously had people available who did art and tools in their spare time, possibly specialists in it. Most people even today sort of suck at making anything. The Neanderthals were obviously getting familiar with the newcombers. Maybe these tools and personal decoration were helpful in social interactions with the moderns. Mtloweman (talk) 23:25, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Archaelogical evidence does not contradict the possibility that they simply produced more tools out of wood.--Senor Freebie (talk) 14:58, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Genome

is the comparison of one neanderthal subject enough to discern interbreeding? Being that all modern humans share about 99.9% of their DNA giving .1% to differentiate protein/structural differences of which we use to classify species anthropologically. It would seem that a comparing the DNA of the fragment of a femur found at Vindija cave subject to the DNA of all current known human specimens would reveal a more definitive answer. Or am I not understanding something?

69.244.125.35 (talk) 08:27, 21 December 2009 (UTC)Marek

Do we know the chromosome number for Neanderthal cells? 86.183.0.173 (talk) 20:45, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Some speculations titled Past Life Memory of Neanderthals

Neanderthals were a different species of human. This is difficult for us to imagine since modern man is and has been the only species of human for as long as we can remember. The Neanderthals were much taller, larger, and more muscular than the Homo Sapiens of their time. They were also more intelligent, more civilized, and with more advanced tools than the Homo Sapiens. Their bodies were covered in soft smooth fur and longer coarser hair which is why they did not have need for clothing like the naked Homo Sapiens. Neanderthals lived in communities with private lodgings for their families. They usually built their homes at the tops of mountains or hills where they enjoyed views of the valley below, while the Homo Sapiens preferred to remain hidden in caves. Neanderthals were gentle giants with deep emotions, though less expressive in their facial features than Homo Sapiens. When they smiled, it appeared as a grin to the Homo Sapiens who often misread their more subtle body language. Neanderthal males and females were similar in appearance. Though not as dimorphic as the Homo Sapiens were, Neanderthal females were shorter and with a smaller body frame than their male counterparts. Neanderthal men married one wife and had fewer children than the Homo Sapiens. Married couples had very caring, respectful, monogamous partnerships, and they mated for life. If one partner passed away, they did not usually choose to remarry. Neanderthals viewed Homo Sapiens as barbaric because the alpha males of the tribes usually took many wives by force and had indiscriminate sexual relations with multiple partners. If a Homo Sapien female refused a dominant male, she would most likely be punished by getting kidnapped, raped, and killed by a mob of tribal men. Neanderthals were shocked and appalled at these barbaric behaviors because they simply could not understand the purpose of inter-tribal violence. Homo Sapiens, for the most part, feared the Neanderthals and with good reason. Neanderthals were carnivorous creatures who hunted and ate large animals, including Homo Sapiens. Though it was possible for Neanderthals to mate with Homo Sapiens, they did not normally choose to intermingle with anyone outside their own species. After all, they viewed Homo Sapiens as a source of food. Neanderthals did not normally attack Homo Sapiens in the caves where they lived, but they did hunt them down if they happened to cross paths in the forests and open valleys. Though Neanderthals spoke their own language, the leaders would sometimes learn the language of the Homo Sapiens so they could meet with, discuss issues with, and negotiate mutually beneficial co-habitation agreements with a more intellectually advanced Homo Sapien representative. For safety reasons, the two would meet one-on-one in a private location far away from the others. On a rare occasion, they would even develop friendships with each other and exchange tools and knowledge. In this way, the Neanderthals contributed to the advancement of the Homo Sapiens. If there was a war between the Neanderthals and the Homo Sapiens, the Neanderthals would surely win. However, they usually did not kill off entire tribes of Homo Sapiens as they were an adequate source of food, especially during the winter months when other game was scarcer. I am not sure why the Neanderthals went extinct. However, I do know that that they were vulnerable in at least one way. They had short and powerful bursts of energy which they used up fairly quickly. For example, they could sprint very fast, covering large areas of ground in a very short period of time. However, after a sprint like this, they were in need of a rest. If they over-exerted themselves, they would drop to the ground to take a quick nap. If one Neanderthal was on the ground sleeping by himself, he could theoretically get surrounded by a group of Homo Sapien hunters who could attack him with spears tied to the end of sticks. But even under these conditions, a Neanderthal would be able to wake up and sprint away, easily outrunning all the Homo Sapien hunters. For these reasons, it is more likely that the Neanderthals went extinct by some natural catastrophe. Perhaps, the Homo Sapiens survived this catastrophe because they sought refuge in their caves. Homo Sapiens had more predators and were therefore more accustomed to storing a large supply of food to survive long periods of time while hidden inside these caves. I don’t think that Homo Sapiens survived extinction because they were superior to the Neanderthals. They probably just survived because of some act of self defense that gave them a survival advantage at that specific period of time in our ancient history. (69.105.142.156 (talk) 05:59, 30 December 2009 (UTC)) And how do you know all this? Chrisrus (talk) 06:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC) Shirley MacLaine couldn't remember her password(s)? ;p TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 08:39, 30 December 2009 (UTC) Appears to not be "difficult to imagine" at all!!! ... I know I can't "remember" that far back. - Steve3849 21:22, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Please stop Chopping Out My Contributions!!!!

I spent a lot of time writing up stuff referenceing the Paul Jordan work and it was deleted without thought by rascals. Rascals, please stop. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mtloweman (talk • contribs) 00:24, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Expansion and Inclusion

I have begun an attempt to make the pages on Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo habilis, and Homo georgicus resemble each other in format and content more closely. I shall try to present each competing interpretation, but have often settled, half-way through the page, on presenting each species as legitimately distinct (while letting readers know, of course). My main concern is that these six pages present many prevalent and valid interpretations but no conformity of tone or content between pages (or sometimes even paragraphs). I shall also try to make conglomerate authorship less detectable between pages, personally editing large chunks using my own tone. I shall attempt, however, to let no personal interpretations of our ancestry interfere with the hypotheses presented. I will not eradicate any additions to these pages' content, obviously, but will attempt to make their voice and presentation uniform. Homo Ergaster (talk) 00:24, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

block of text in extinction hypothesis

I find the following block of text, found in the section Neanderthal#Extinction, quite problematic. It is written like an essay and in some cases is unencyclopedic. Any association between the text and the extinction hypothesis is somewhat obfuscated

Extended content

Neanderthals, according to Jordan (2001), appear to have had psychological traits that worked well in their early history but finally placed them at a long-term disadvantage with regards to modern humans. Jordan is of the opinion that the Neanderthal mind was sufficiently different from that of Homo sapiens to have been "alien" in the sense of thinking differently from that of modern humans, despite the obvious fact that Neanderthals were highly intelligent, with a brain as large or larger than our own. This theory is supported by what Neanderthals possessed, and just as importantly, by what they lacked, in cultural attributes and manufactured artifacts. Essentially, the Neanderthals lost out because their behaviors and tools eventually became second-rate. There once was a time when both human types shared essentially the same Mousterian tool kit and neither human type had a definite competitive advantage, as evidenced by the shifting Homo sapiens/Neanderthal borderland in the Middle East. But finally Homo sapiens started to attain behavioral or cultural adaptations that allowed "moderns" an advantage. There are early glimmers of this from Zaire where in the area of Katanda bone harpoon points have been found of fine workmanship, dating to perhaps 80,000 years ago. These featured backwards-pointing barbs and lateral grooves so they could be easily installed on a wooden shaft, used to harpoon local fish. These appear to have been made by modern humans and make for a more sophisticated spear than any that Neanderthals are known to have made. Jordan admits some of these innovations were "flash in the pan" local affairs that faded away for awhile, but there does not seem much question that Homo sapiens in Africa was taking steps toward better tools and a more complex social life, while the Neanderthal ways and technology remained the same. It is noted that fishing was never much of a Neanderthal accomplishment (they did eat fish on occasion) but is more a behavior of modern human types. There is an example of a barbed point made from bone, evidently made by a Neanderthal, but such finds are very rare. Per Jordan the Neanderthals made wooden and stone artifacts, but bone and ivory ones were not common, implying that the Neanderthal mind tended to be rather resistant to learning new methods or materials. Neanderthal people mastered complex tasks such as the making of fire, shelters with post holes, and stone tools. In their later career Neanderthals appear to have sometimes buried their dead and their placement of Cave Bear bones in order shows some sort of reverence or perhaps religion toward this animal. Yet there were many Cro-Magnon tools and behaviors that the Neanderthals seem to have never developed: organized fishing, using fish hooks and fish nets; headgear or hats, shoes, sewn clothing, needle-and-thread, and long-distance trade. It is still debated whether Neanderthals had significant art or music. Other researchers think that the Neanderthals had little sexual division of labor, with Neanderthal women alongside the men hunting big game. Such a lifestyle was not as energy efficient as that of modern humans, whose hunter-gatherer lifestyle secured supplemental food of a much greater variety, including plant materials such as tubers or wild grains, fish, edible fungi, and small edible animals secured by women, young boys/girls and elderly men, while males in the prime of life could hunt big mammals. Since the Neanderthals were mostly carnivorous and targeting big mammals, a shortage of large mammals meant possible bouts of starvation or malnutrition, which affected Cro-Magnon people less. The Neanderthals appear to have stored food against lean times much less than Cro-Magnon people did. Neanderthals got food in a haphazard, catch-as-catch-can manner. In addition, the Cro-Magnon sites show a lot of animal remains of small creatures best hunted with traps and snares, such as squirrels and rabbits, whereas Neanderthal sites show few such fossils. In short, inferior methods shut Neanderthals out of many food sources that Cro-Magnons exploited. Cro-Magnons could carry more people on the land than Neanderthals could, and one may infer that Cro-Magnons would have familial and tribal organization that Neanderthals could not match, if they had the latter at all. Neanderthals appear to have never used boats or rafts, as evidenced by the lack of Neanderthal fossils from North Africa, yet in stark contrast Homo erectus, their more primitive ancestor, appears to have used rafts or some other sort of boat on occasion. Homo erectus, or some other hominid, used such craft to reach the island of Flores as evidenced by the discovery of Homo floresiensis in 2003. Flores and some other places Homo erectus reached have always been surrounded by very deep water, proving the use of watercraft of some sort. Since the Neanderthals evidently never used watercraft, but prior and/or arguably more primitive editions of humanity did, there is argument that Neanderthals represent a highly specialized side branch of the human tree, relying more on physiological adaptation than psychological adaptation in daily life than "moderns". Specialization has been seen before in other hominims, such as Paranthropus boisei which evidently was adapted to eat rough vegetation. Additionally, Neanderthals evidently had little long-term planning when securing food. French caves show almost no salmon bones during Neanderthal occupancy but large numbers during Cro-Magnon occupancy. In contrast, Cro-Magnons planned for salmon runs months ahead of time, getting enough people together at just the right time and place to catch a lot of fish. Neanderthals appear to have had little to no social organization beyond the immediate family unit. Why Neanderthal psychology was different from the modern humans that they coexisted with for millenia is not known. Due to the paucity of symbolism that Neanderthal artifacts show, Neanderthal language probably did not deal much with a verbal future tense, again restricting Neanderthal exploitation of resources. Cro-Magnon people had a much better standard of living than the hardscrabble existence available to Neanderthals. With better language skills and bigger social groups, a better psychological repertoire, and better planning, Cro-Magnon people, living alongside the Neanderthals on the same land, outclassed them in terms of life span, population, available spare time (as shown by Cro-Magnon art), physical health and lower rate of injury, infant mortality, comfort, quality of life, and food procurement. The advantages held by Cro-Magnon people let them by this time to thrive in worse climatic conditions than their Neanderthal counterparts. As weather worsened about 30,000 years ago, Jordan notes it would have taken only one or two thousand years of inferior Neanderthal skills to cause them to go extinct, in light of better Cro-Magnon performance in all these areas. Jordan states the Chatelperronian tool tradition suggests Neanderthals were making some attempts at advancement, as Chatelperronian tools are only associated with Neanderthal remains. It appears this tradition was connected to social contact with Cro-Magnons of some sort. There were some items of personal decoration found at these sites, but these are inferior to contemporary Cro-Magnon items of personal decoration and arguably were made more by imitation than by a spirit of original creativity. At the same time, Neanderthal stone tools were sometimes finished well enough to show some aesthetic sense. As Jordan notes: "A natural sympathy for the underdog and the disadvantaged lends a sad poignancy to the fate of the Neanderthal folk, however it came about."

I therefore propose deleting it. At best it can be summarized into a few bullet points, that is if any information isn't already stated in the article. Wapondaponda (talk) 06:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I would sooner it be rewritten. If Neandertal & H.sap started with the same tools & Neandertal inability to learn/change led to, or contributed to, their extinction (which appears to be the thrust of this piece), it's important IMO. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 22:45, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Better? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 23:09, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the whole block of text can be summarized in fewer words. There is an article, modern human behavior, that essentially deals with basically all the behaviors listed, (ability to fish, language, trade, art etc). One could summarize the whole block of text by simply stating something like, "Archeological evidence suggests that, unlike the Cro-Magnons, the Neanderthals lacked many of the traits associated with modern human behavior". This may have placed the Neanderthals at a competitive disadvantage".

Wapondaponda (talk) 11:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

More details are needed and kept to show the bias and thin research logic in this area. There are lots of opinions that differ. Present Cro-Magnon species copulate with goats , horses ,dogs ,etc after thirty thousand years of evolution??Wdl1961 (talk) 13:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

<--I'd agree it can be trimmed, but trimming too much is a mistake, IMO. Why & how Neandertals differed is important, & belongs here, not in an article on modern humans. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 07:19, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes the possible behavioral differences between Neanderthals and humans are important. I am not advocating censoring any material, or diminishing the overall meaning of the text. However it is clear that the text could be organized much better. A lot of the text is highly speculative though it is written as factual. Some material is even irrelevant. For example, this sentence states,

As Jordan notes: "A natural sympathy for the underdog and the disadvantaged lends a sad poignancy to the fate of the Neanderthal folk, however it came about".

Much of the material in this block of text is from one source Jordan, P. (2001) Neanderthal: Neanderthal Man and the Story of Human Origins. The History Press ISBN 978-0750926768.

According to WP:UNDUE "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each."

Therefore we should not give too much weight to the speculative theories from one book. Wapondaponda (talk) 13:40, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

New research: date of extinction/replacement - 37,000 years ago

A new research by João Zilhão1, Simon J. M. Davis, Cidália Duarte, António M. M. Soares, Peter Steier, Eva Wild puts the date of Neanderthal extinction/replacement at 37,000 years ago, and denies the Gribraltar hypothesis. See Zilhão J, Davis SJM, Duarte C, Soares AMM, Steier P, et al. (2010) "Pego do Diabo (Loures, Portugal): Dating the Emergence of Anatomical Modernity in Westernmost Eurasia". PLoS ONE 5(1): e8880. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008880. The Ogre (talk) 13:53, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Neandertal Predation Theory

Not to stir an already overflowing pot, but has anyone had a look at the research/book by the Australian auteur Danny Vendramini?

He has re-examined existing evidence and has created new theories on Neandertal, including predation, sexual predation and cannibalism. His artist has produced some startling images that seem more natural than the lumbering caveman we have grown accustom to seeing, certainly nothing like the cute little boy that illustrates the "Anatomy" section.

While he has no scientific background; (he has formerly been a sculptor, screenwriter, director, etc.) his ideas seem sound, and fantastic at the same time. He seems to use terms like "apex predator" a lot. His claims are wild (From what I can tell, he calls us a race of "wall-builders [cf. Great Wall of China], presumably to keep these Neandertals away from us

http://themandus.org

If I'm not mistaken; this is an older view of Neandertal: Brutish and effective predator of humans.

The pictures are very startling (as they should be) and the writing is generally focused, but I'm afraid it's too big for me and I want to turn itover to the Wikipedians for examination.

CLD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.111.169.49 (talk) 03:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this theory is notable or scientifically sound enough to warrant mention. The guy is a scriptwriter and seems much more interested in its dramatic qualities of his theories than their schientific merit.·Maunus·ƛ· 11:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've read it and ask you if this doesn't make sense to you: If you'll stay with me for a moment, think of the pronghorn, probably the fastest thing on four hoofs, many times faster than it has to be to survive today. Why is it so fast? The explanation came when remains of an extinct predator, a giant american cheetah, was found to have been the fastest thing on four paws. So why are humans so much smarter than any other animal or hominid? Competition with what was very likely to be the second most intelligent animal ever seems obvious to me.

Mark my words, one day mainstream science will find this theory or come to it independantly. This is an idea, like many other scientific ideas have been, that is "in the ether" at this moment and will inevitably be recognized. This all is, of course, Venramini's (and my) perspective and has no place in the article until it shows up in a legitimate journal. I think it will be somewhat less global than Venramini's take, which he takes too far in some cases. His evidence about the occular orbits, for example, is very powerful. However, Manus is right, it has to stay out of the article until it becomes "notable". Sometimes it takes an outsider to notice the obvious.Chrisrus (talk) 14:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

To be sure

He is/has been a screenwriter, but that doesn't automatically mean his ideas are rubbish.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2009/2751670.htm

In this reference, it is noted that he has no "formal scientific background"; however, the road of science is pockmarked with contributors who have no formal background. I understand that may be a moot point, but some people are listening to him and he has already gotten much support from various luminaries (from what I can tell, Noam Chomsky is one).

http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/origin-of-a-big-idea/2006/01/02/1136050390209.html

Thanks Chrisrus. I don't really understand the controversy. Is it so fantastic that another species of hominid would be hostile to another? I mean, we humans kill (and probably ate) each other regularly, as of yesterday we were still doing this, so I don't see the Predation Theory as such a huge leap in faith. Some of his ideas are a bit strange of course, but that's to be expected, and some of Tessla's ideas were a bit nutty too, from what I've read here on Wikipedia. I admit, some of his genetic and evolutionary ideas are kind of a reach (and you can tell he never did an undergrad in biology [or at least I think]), but that doesn't mean his ideas are to be rejected out of hand.

As far as the pronghorn, we are told, for example, that cheetahs are the way they are because of an extinction event that killed almost all of the population and what few were left became, essentially the matrix for all future cheetahs. That is, we believe there was much more diversity in the cheetah family some thousands of years ago, but the breeding stock was so reduced that what cheetahs we have are what's left from an earlier time. Now the stock is very rarified (and if wild cheetah population numbers keep dropping at the current rate, even that rarified stock will soon become extinct....probably the destiny for most of the Earth's creatures).

I am in any event skeptical about most discoveries that involve thousands of year-old specimens with so little evidence.

How many complete Neandertal skeletons do we have access to? (Or how many of any of the human precedents for that matter?) How much evidence can we really get from these fragmented puzzles? I suppose Pääbo and his Neandertal Genome Project will shed a great deal of light on Neandertal behavior and such, but even so... Speculation about a dead animal is still speculation about a dead animal. Unless you were there to see it alive, it is all just guesswork, even with a slew of scientific equipment/theories/etc. behind you. A genetic marker for meat preference will tell you that a creature is a meat-eater, but not how that creature got such meat.

Or I could be wrong (and I'm sure someone here will be happy to tell me such).

So that's my two cents worth, I don't know if it's worthy of me getting belittled with bad spelling (it happens a lot, I've noticed), but it is there and I look forward to the coming discourse.

CLD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.111.169.49 (talk) 16:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

However...

"However, Manus is right, it has to stay out of the article until it becomes "notable". Sometimes it takes an outsider to notice the obvious. Chrisrus"

Absolutley, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

CLD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.111.169.49 (talk) 16:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Standards...

--207.111.169.49 (talk) 17:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)This was my first interaction on Wikipedia. Future Comments will be given the proper signature 207.111.169.49 (talk) 17:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC) CLD

Unfortunately from what I'm gathering about his theory there is one gaping flaw in the fossil evidence. Neanderthal only interacted with Homo Sapien after the latter reached the Levant and at that point it seems our brains were shrinking. If his contention is we got smarter while escaping or combatting a hostile Neanderthal then we got smarter while our brains shrunk.--Senor Freebie (talk) 15:37, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Eye Size

If you wish, I'll explain why I'm asking, but for now, I'd like to get to the point: I need to know as precisely as possible how big thier eyes were compared to ours. Circumference of the eyeball, diameter, anything like that, those of Homo sapiens and those of Neanderthals. I figure we can know this based on the orbits of the skull, give or take a little. How does the orbit of the skull of a neanderthal compare to those of a sapiens?

This information doesn't seem to be in the article. May we assume that's because they were no different from those of sapiens? Does it mean that none of the sources mentions anything about the orbit size? Does this mean it's unremarkable? Surely, someone in one of the reliable sources has recorded the size of the orbits! This couldn't have been overlooked. It doesn't seem reasonable to me that they never measured them or noted them or published this information. But I can't find it and I'm feeling frustrated and I am asking for your help because it's important for me to find this information. Chrisrus (talk) 20:15, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

• Try here. Abductive (reasoning) 20:35, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I don't know that I understand this technical language, but I think it is saying that they eyes are somewhat large, but not outside the normal range of the eye size of normal humans. Can anyone confirm this is what this source is saying? Chrisrus (talk) 01:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I think so. Neanderthal's eyes were a bit bigger than AMH's eyes, but there aren't enough complete skulls to say much more (standard deviations and so forth). I would suggest just calling some of the professors who work on Neanderthals, and asking them. Or email them, if you are shy. Abductive (reasoning) 04:19, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Heck no, I'm not shy about that! In fact, I've been trying to figure out who would be considered the world's leading experts on the subject of neanderthal skulls. Any suggestions? I'll explain why if you want, but it's just really important that this article contain something about the difference between not only the brow ridge, occipital lobe, and everything else that is contrasted in this article, but the orbits as well. This is a glaring omission that should not stand. What we need is an expert or two, hopefully someone who can interpret this source. Chrisrus (talk) 01:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I would be interested to hear a more thorough explanation of why you want this in the article.--Senor Freebie (talk) 15:27, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's a glaring omission. Look at the description of the skull, all the meticulous detail about the dentition and the rest of the skeleton. The brows are, of course, are as predominant in that section as they are in real life and the occipital lobe is indicated with an arrow. But what does it say about the orbits?Chrisrus (talk) 23:32, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

• File:Orbits-framed.jpg

As you can see, this picture makes the eyes seem huge in comparison, but this may be some kind of optical illusion created when the two photos were lined up. It would help people who want to know if Neanderthal orbits were really as huge as they seem, and as some claim them to have been if this article had some objective, well-sourced information saying how big their eyes must have been by scientists who've measured them and are in a position to know how they compare to the large end of the spectrum of eye sockets of modern humans. Chrisrus (talk) 18:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Discovery of the Neanderthal

You should emphazise that the skull fragment of the Neanderthal man was first discovered Mid August 1856 by stonecrashers in a lime stone quarry in the Neandervalley (See German Wikipedia, translate it with Google Translater). It is correct that similiar skulls of the Neanderthal man were discovered in 1829 in Engis, Belgium and in 1848 in Gibraltar, but they were not identified as a ancient type of man or urman (German: Urmensch), as we would say in Germany. In fact they were misidentified as skulls of at historical times deceased men.

The importance of the discovery of the skull fragment in the Neandervalley is, that the quarrymen put the bonefragments, which they thought were bonefragments from a bear, to the local schoolteacher Johann Carl Fuhlrott, who collected bones, minerals etc. Johann Carl Fuhlrott identified the front part of the vault (Calotte) of the skull not only correct as human, but also correct as very ancient, because of thick supraorbital beads (Tori supraorbitales). For further confirmation he send the skull fragment to the anatomist Franz Josef Mayer and the anthropologist Hermann Schaaffhausen at the Univerity of Bonn, which confirmed his thinkings. Their considerations caused quite a stir, because for the first time it was scientificly prooven, that an archaic form of human beings with different morphological characters had lived on earth. This discussion increased after the publication of Charles Darwins book "On the Origin of Species" in 1859. The most prominet example on the intensity of the dispute about the nature of the skull was the famous misinterpretation by the renowed anatomist and pathologist Rudolf Virchow, who declared the Neandervalley skull as an example of a degenerated Napoleonic soldier, who was fatally wounded in the german-french Napoleonic liberation wars around 1813 and retreated into the cave for dying.

The skull fragments from Engis and Gibraltar were only retrospectivly identified as Neanderthalian skulls. Therefore they shouldn´t named at first in the section about the discovery of the Neanderthalian skull. You should also include in this article the famous misinterpretation of the skull by Rudolf Virchow as an example of the intensity of the dispute on the true nature of the Neanderthalian skull.

I would commend the translation of the analog section of this article in the German Wikipedia by Google Translater, which also includes source links.

Michael Belzer —Preceding unsigned comment added by MBelzer (talk • contribs) 17:01, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I will try "Google translate" the German Wikipedia's counterpart to this article; maybe getting some German-speaking Wikipedian(s?) I know to help me clean it up. Maybe I then I'll come back here and report findings to you all here on this discussion page. I am very curious to see how it differs. Chrisrus (talk) 23:25, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

The German article is much less non-committal about the separate species status:

The Neanderthal (Scientific: Homo neanderthalensis) Is an extinct relative of today's People (Homo sapiens). It developed in parallel, but independent of Homo sapiens from a common ancestor of the African Genus Homo.

The term Neanderthal goes back to the "Neandertal", one between the cities Erkrath and Mettmann lying part of the valley of the Düsseldorf, where the first fossils of Neanderthal man were found.

At times, the Neanderthals were not considered distinct species, but as subspecies of Homo sapiens, as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, next to the modern man, Homo sapiens sapiens as it was called.

That's the entire lead right there. Our lead here is huge in comparison, and leaves the H.s.neandertalensis vs. H.neandertalensis thing as still up in the air. Chrisrus (talk) 04:09, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I thought I'd check the French version as well. As I thought might be the case in the home of Rousseau, it's a bit naive-sounding nobel-savagey for my taste. Nevertheless, it also depicts the subspecies option as basically old news:

A Neanderthal is a representative fossil kind Homo who lived Europe and West Asia to Middle Paleolithic between about 250,000 and 28,000 years before present. For over a century after its discovery, the assumptions about it reflected the prejudices of the moment: long considered a subspecies of Homo sapiens named accordingly Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, it is now regarded by most authors as a species appointed independent Homo neanderthalensis.

The first "Man" fossil recognized, first "human being" disappeared separate from the Man Current, the Neanderthal is the origin of rich material culture known Mousterian and initial aesthetic and spiritual concerns in Europe (graves). After a difficult recognition, the Neanderthals had long suffered from a negative against Homo sapiens. It is still regarded in the popular imagination as a being simian, crude, ugly and retarded. It is actually more robust than Homo sapiens and the brain is slightly larger on average. The progress of archeology prehistoric and paleoanthropology since 1960 have revealed a creature of great cultural richness.

Many issues are yet to be elucidated, especially regarding the causes of its extinction after 300,000 years existence, to 28,000 years BP.

Chrisrus (talk) 18:24, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

A subspecies of human?

It says that either Neanderthals are a subspecies of human (homo sapiens neanderthalensis) or a separate species (homo neanderthalensis) How could something that is a verified hominid/human be a separate species? Of course it's a subspecies of human! So is Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis, Homo Floresensis, Homo Heidelbergensis, etc. I think it means a subspecies of Homo Sapiens (wise man) or a separate species

A hominid is a member of the family Hominidae, which includes humans, chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans, as well as various extinct species. To say that Neanderthals were "human" doesn't say anything in particular about the species they should be assigned to. Homo habilis and Homo erectus are species within the genus Homo, and not the same species as us; we're Homo sapiens. So it's correct to say that Neanderthals could be a subspecies of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) or a separate species within the genus Homo (Homo neanderthalensis). Agathman (talk) 13:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Are there still many holdouts for the subspecies status? I have gathered from watching the evolution of this article that the "separate species" idea had taken root. If so, any mention of subspecies status shouldn't be in the lead anymore but rather only as history of thinking on the subject. Chrisrus (talk) 17:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Remember that the main reason for regarding humans and Neanderthals as separate species was that for ten years or so people believed that they simply did not mate, even when given the opportunity. Now that this issue has been reopened, the debate is reopened also.

This is actually a very contentious and potentially offensive issue, because if you consider the two as separate species, then technically that makes whites members of a hybrid species H. sapiens x H. neanderthalensis, and blacks members of another species called H. sapiens! I suppose we would then have white supremacists claiming (as so many have so long believed..,) a stronger Neanderthal heritage than the rest of us. With a few hundred generations of rigorous separatism and selective mating, we might be able to see something of what Neanderthals was really like. ;) Wnt (talk) 00:02, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

BMI

Please delete cm/weight from Considering the body build of Neanderthals, new body weight estimates show they are only slightly above the cm/weight or the body mass index of modern Americans or Canadians. It's unscientific and makes no sense at all. BMI is kg/m², so more cm/weight means lower BMI.--87.162.33.234 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC).

• Well, that's what the source says, more or less. [6] Do you disagree with the way the source phrases it? Abductive (reasoning) 06:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

American's and Canadian's are typically well over what doctors would consider healthy BMI. I personally am according to BMI morbidly obese, but from Australia, yet I am I think a healthy weight. BMI does give an indication of the density of individuals bones and muscles, and in the Neanderthal context this is quite relevant. If for example, as nomadic societies they had BMI's as high as modern North American's they were quite a fair bit denser then your typical modern human nomad. Additionally, given that the Neanderthal Genome project has just come out and said that the genes responsible for our skeletal structure were influenced by Neanderthal, there is a good chance having an indication of their BMI will actually help people curious about their ancestry.--Senor Freebie (talk) 15:33, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

We are Neanderthals

It's offical: Neanderthal genes 'survive in us' --Michael C. Price ^talk 18:53, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

If you've read the article it says that some Neanderthal genes survive in us (1-4%). And this only holds true for eurasians, not africans. It's still a very interesting discovery, though.

JiPe (193.10.105.176 (talk) 19:18, 6 May 2010 (UTC))

Must hold true for Africans as well, since there was a later back-into-Africa migration. And they were using Africans as the base line, so perhaps the figure is 1-4% plus the unknown baseline.

As a corrolary, it answers the question about whether we are the same species; evidently we are; i.e. homo sapiens sapiens and homo sapiens neanderthalensis. --Michael C. Price ^talk 19:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Not necessarily, even members of different animal genera, not to mention families, can interbreed. FunkMonk (talk) 22:07, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying you're wrong, but what examples of interfamily breeding are you thinking of? --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

See our own article, Hybrid (biology). FunkMonk (talk) 02:15, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

It holds true for everybody except the africans. Anyways, we might consider an alternative description to "extinct". More like "diluted". Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 09:10, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

No, holds for the Africans as well, due to migrations back into Africa. Just to a lesser extent, that's all. (The 1-4% is actually the difference between Africans and non-Africans.)

Re "diluted". Possibly, but consider that this is equivalent to >50M+ Neanderthals alive today, more than ever existed at anytime in the past. "Assimilated" might be a better description.

--Michael C. Price ^talk 10:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I answered 193.10.105.176. As for your statement: it must be as you say. But that is not dealt with in the article. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 10:50, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Please read the article[7]. The 1% to 4% are the results for Eurasian (French, Han Chinese, Papuan) populations. Sub-Saharan Africans have 0%. Of course, 0% does not literally mean "0%", it means "not detectable". Keep in mind that the human genome has a limited number of base-pairs, about 2^32. This means that if you have one Neanderthal ancestor more than 32 generations (less than 1000 years) ago, you will tend to inherit zero base pairs from him. You can only retain "Neanderthal genes" if a substantial number of your ancestors are Neanderthals. Thus, the "back migration" proves nothing. --dab (𒁳) 11:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Read some of the surrounding commentary

"the 1-4 percent estimate as a minimum, for several reasons. As I'll note below, this estimate mainly refers to the excess Neandertal ancestry outside Africa, which means there may be some additional amount that both recent African and non-African populations share. "

- it is a difference, not an absolute value. They expect the absolute figure to be higher.--Michael C. Price ^talk 11:56, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

sorry, what are you trying to say? Your blog commentary tries to shed light on the "1-4%" figure. The " the genetic equivalent of 50 million Neandertals" point is just silly. Let's stick to the Science article for the time being, alright?

fair enough, we don't have "0%" for Sub-Saharan Africa, we have "N/A". --dab (𒁳) 12:05, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify, where do they say that they expect the figure to be higher? I also expect it to be higher and am very interested to see which modern populations have larger amounts of reccessive genes. Also, something that people may not be asking yet is the question of neanderthal genes being lets say very similar to other extinct hominin's such as the one recently discovered in Siberia. Perhaps this report doesn't give us that full a picture and perhaps even mis-represents the small samples of moderns as more Neanderthal then they actually are. However these are the debates editors should leave to scientists with sourceable material. I'm just suggesting, perhaps we shouldn't infer "more then 4%" or that the genome project has suggested this unless we can accurately source this.--Senor Freebie (talk) 15:18, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Michael is saying that "Eurasians have 1%-4% more Neanderthal admixture than Africans". This is the claim in the blog linked. It is intended as an explanation of this passage,

"Under the assumption that there was no gene flow from Neandertals to the ancestors of modern Africans, the proportion of Neandertal ancestry of non-Africans, f, can be estimated by the ratio S(OOA,AFR,N1,Chimpanzee)/S(N2,AFR,N1,Chimpanzee), where the S statistic is an unnormalized version of the D statistic (SOM Text 18, Eq. S18.4). Using Neandertals from Vindija, as well as Mezmaiskaya, we estimate f to be between 1.3% and 2.7% (SOM Text 18). To obtain an independent estimate of f, we fit a population genetic model to the D statistics in Table 4 and SOM Text 15 as well as to other summary statistics of the data. Assuming that gene flow from Neandertals occurred between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago, this method estimates f to be between 1 and 4%"

it is true that the assumption "that there was no gene flow from Neandertals to the ancestors of modern Africans", i.e. the comparison (OOA,AFR,N1):(N2,AFR,N1), gives a result that is too low if AFR had Neanderthal admixture too. But the assumption is justified by what was found above,

"Strikingly, no comparison within Eurasia (Papuan-French-Han) or within Africa (Yoruba-San) shows significant skews in D (|Z| < 2 SD). However, all comparisons of non-Africans and Africans show that the Neandertal is closer to the non-African (D from 3.8% to 5.3%, |Z| > 7.0 SD) (Table 4). Thus, analyses of present-day humans consistently show that Neandertals share significantly more derived alleles with non-Africans than with Africans, whereas they share equal amounts of derived alleles when compared either to individuals within Eurasia or to individuals within Africa."

I suggest we will have to wait for reviews to decide whether the assumptions made can be said to be universally accepted as justified. --dab (𒁳) 16:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Hitler would've had a field day with this. White devils from the North, and by North, I mean, look up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.34.188.77 (talk) 03:47, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Sort of on the topic above:

"Since recent evidence does show successful interbreeding (with fertile offspring) took place, some Neanderthals logically had good enough social and learning skills to be sexually attractive to modern people"

No, it does not logically show that. Some modern humans do have sex with animals. By the the logic above, this means Neanderthals had the social and learning skills atleast on the level of sheep. I think we knew that already. Secondly, it could easily be a matter of neanderthals raping humans. In this case, it doesn't even mean the neanderthal found the human attractive, it may simply be a form of violence and punishment. 130.243.209.80 (talk) 10:55, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

This discussion is becoming absurder and absurder. For Mr IP156.34.188.77 I invoke Godwin's law! For Mr IP130.243.209.80: you're formally right but the discussion page is about the article Neanderthal, not about the topic itself. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 11:00, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

What does "non-modern" mean in this sentence: About 1 to 4 percent of the DNA in Europeans, Asians and native Americans is non-modern? As I understand the study, it found that 1-4% of DNA seems to have come from Neanderthals long after they split apart. But most of the rest of our genome isn't any more "modern". I'm not a biologist though.--90.186.59.108 (talk) 17:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I found this http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/06/AR2010050604423.html and it said black Africans don't have it. I read this article before and it was all the gene for red hair was a different gene and not neanderthal. Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 22:00, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about "it's official". If you see the New York Times article, they speak of there being some skepticism amoung other scientists about this finding. I'd adopt a bit of a wait and see attitude. Personally, it seems to me highly unlikely that this big neanderthal story today will turn out to be true. Chrisrus (talk) 22:45, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

In any case, it's far from definitive, the paper itself states: "Although gene flow from Neandertals into modern humans when they first left sub-Saharan Africa seems to be the most parsimonious model compatible with the current data, other scenarios are also possible. For example, we cannot currently rule out a scenario in which the ancestral population of present-day non-Africans was more closely related to Neandertals than the ancestral population of present-day Africans due to ancient substructure within Africa (Fig. 6). If after the divergence of Neandertals there was incomplete genetic homogenization between what were to become the ancestors of non-Africans and Africans, present-day non-Africans would be more closely related to Neandertals than are Africans. In fact, old population substructure in Africa has been suggested based on genetic (81) as well as paleontological data (86)." FunkMonk (talk) 22:50, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Does Papuan cover Australian Aborigines? Does the hybridization also explain the apparent higher IQ profile of Asians and Europeans over Black Africans because Neanderthals had larger brains, and hybrid vigor as a result of hybridization of moderns with Neanderthals? 86.180.53.230 (talk) 23:06, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Papuan's are very close relatives to Australian Aborigines due to the strait west of the island of Flores causing these peoples isolation from Asia. The theory put forward by the Max Planck Institute states that this meeting of genes occured before the migration waves that both Papuan's and Aborigine's were part of. However they only sampled 5 different modern humans for comparison making any definitive comparison a point that is irrelevant for wikipedia unless another source can be found. As for your argument on IQ, it has been established thoroughly that IQ is related to education, environmental and economic conditions not genetics. It sounds like you're grasping for "evidence" to justify a eugenics like analysis of this data which has been redundant for over a century. If you ever tried to make this argument in a serious scientific discussion you'd have a hundred studies thrown at you that would show people with the same genetic range in two different environments who compare unfavourably in intelligence. Additionally I suggest you take a closer look at the actual report. You mention hybrid vigour, but the researchers point out that 3 genetic areas where Neanderthal genes may have influence are the genes for down syndrome, autism and scizophrenia. If anything, this is a corruption of mental potential, if the neanderthal gene was the root cause of these conditions.--Senor Freebie (talk) 23:31, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Can Senor provide some references to back his claim of "it has been established thoroughly that IQ is related to education, environmental and economic conditions not genetics"? As far as current IQ studies have shown, it is that the black population has a lower average IQ than others, with the East Asians having the highest average IQ. Of course IQ tests may themselves be biased. As far as education etc is concerned, even the high IQ society Mensa says its members come from all walks of life, such as plumbers and carpenters, and not what Senor might call the "educated" group. As for the 3 genetic groups the neanderthals may have influenced , Senor does not say whether the influence was a reduction or an increase in the pathology of the these diseases. However given Down's is due to a duplication of an entire chromosome, and a significant increase in frequency with the increase of the mother's age, it is difficult to see how it was influenced by neanderthals. As for autism and schizophrenia, it is also true to say many autistic people and schizophrenic are in fact highly intelligent people, and in fact the pathology and the intelligence may go hand in hand. For example, Einstein and Newton are thought to have had forms of autism.

It would be appreciated if Senor could be more scientific and objective when presenting his arguments instead of making false accusations about other people's motivations. 86.183.82.223 (talk) 00:07, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I can imagine the scenario that a small number of modern humans left African, say in waves of 50 to 100 individuals. When they reached Neanderthal territories, they were absorbed by the larger native Neanderthal populations. Earlier studies showed that modern human mDNA is distinct from that of Neanderthals. This would suggest that male Neanderthals found female modern humans easier to mate with. Perhaps the modern females were weaker and more willing than Neanderthal females. The hybrid off-springs would then carry all human mDNA. The hybrids became more successful than full-blooded Neanderthals due to hybrid vigor. More modern humans arrived, and they were absorbed in the hybrid populations. The pure blooded Neanderthals died off because of competition or because the arrivals of moderns became a flood. This would also mean that our male Y-chromosome would be nearly identical to that of Neanderthal Y-chromosomes. Is there a study of how related are the Y-chromosomes between Africans and non-Africans?86.180.53.230 (talk) 23:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if Neanderthal wimmin were a good lay? They must have been, else why bonk them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.221.7.4 (talk) 09:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Taxonomy

Whether the possibility of fertile offspring establishes the status of a single species is a matter of taxonomy (a matter of definition). A species is usually defined along the reproduction (fertile offspring) barrier but there are a number of other recognized species that can produce fertile offspring across the species barrier (or rather, the species non-barrier). If Canis latrans produces fertile offspring with Canis lupus, does this mean that Canis latrans needs to be renamed to Canis lupus latrans? This is a cause for headache for the taxonomists, but in the end it's just terminology. --dab (𒁳) 11:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

On your 1st smtm: yes. On your 2nd smtm: there is some degree of variability on the definition, but compare the article Jackal-Dog Hybrid that (I think) alleges that the fertility of the offspring has some limitations; also: at different point in the species tree, hybrids are possible and fertile to different degrees. With prokaryotes and green plants the definition of hybrids should differ very much from the one used for mammals belonging to hominidae. The species/subspecies definition may also differ for fossilized vs. living species, but what's occurring here is prob a transition from a fossil species perspective to a genetic perspective. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 11:21, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if this will help answer your concerns, but it's not only been cited that many Canis species have interbred with fertile offspring, but also that all of them can do so. Not only that, but if you'd look at the articles Eastern Wolf and Red Wolf, you'll see that current thinking seems to be leading towards both of these Canis Lupus subspecies may very well be populations of coywolves that have/had become established in the wild separate from either wolves or coyotes. Be that as it may, this idea that being able to have fertile offspring is unique to animals of one species seems to be one more of these things we learned back in high school that turned out not to be true. Chrisrus (talk) 22:39, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Like I said in my comment to the unregistered contributor below, the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring would depend, in part, on the number of chromosomes shared between "sister species." That is not to say that a Golden Jackal (Canis aureus) will be able to interbreed with a dove (both species have a chromosome number of 78), but it also depends on their phylogenetics. As the Canid hybrid articles says:

"The wolf (including the dingo and domestic dog), coyote, and jackal, all have 78 chromosomes arranged in 39 pairs. This allows them to hybridise freely (barring size or behavioural constraints) and produce fertile offspring."

These wolf-like canids are obviously very close to each other on the phylogenetic tree, closer than humans are to chimps and gorillas! The article also states that the divergence time between those wolf-like canids occurred between 3 to 4 million years ago; the divergence time between chimps (Pan) and Humans (Homo) occurred 4.6 to 6.2 million years ago, and gorillas (Gorilla) 6.2 to 8.4 million years ago. Humans (certainly including Neanderthals) have 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs, while both chimps and gorillas have 48 chromosomes arranged in 24 pairs. With this knowledge, there is a possibility that chimps and gorillas can mate, but their offspring will probably be sterile. Given that some Neanderthal genes exist in certain modern human populations today and that those populations can produce fertile offspring, maybe it is fair to say that Neanderthals were a subspecies of Homo sapiens. -Ano-User (talk) 12:23, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Horses and donkeys can breed, but they are different species, same with wolves and dogs, and with grizzly bears and polar bears, so you don't have to be the same species to breed. QED. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.41.132 (talk) 03:09, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes a horse and a donkey can interbreed (to make a mule or a hinny), but the offspring will not be fertile. It all depends on the number of chromosomes (64 for horses and 62 for donkeys), but mules are easier to obtain; a mule is the offspring of a female horse and a male donkey. Wolves (Canis lupus) and domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), on the other hand, have the same number of chromosomes (78) and are of the same species. They are, however, classified under different subspecies. Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) and polar bears (Ursus maritimus), I would argue, are in the same species (Brown Bears). But all bears not within the genus Ursus are probably not able to interbreed with ursids, and polar bears may not be a "true" species in their own right; if anything, I would rename them Ursus arctos maritimus, but that's debatable. Polars could very well be the result of a very recent allopatric speciation from U. arctos, but I'm not sure if there is enough genetic evidence to say that with confidence.

But to get back to the current situation of Neanderthal taxonomy, anatomically modern humans and neanderthals are generally thought to have diverged from a common ancestor around 500,000 years ago. Yet, according to recent discovery, Neanderthals and modern humans seem to be more homologous with each other than horses are with donkeys! I'd like to take the credit for having predicted that evidence for hybridization between modern humans and neanderthals would be found sooner or later, but that would be akin to plagiarism. Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending deserve the credit for that, independent of my input on the subject of producing hybrid offspring between the two prehistoric human populations :(. -Ano-User (talk) 05:32, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Because grizzly bears and polar bears are different species and can have fertile offspring, it's clearly incorect to define species lines based on offspring fertility. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.41.132 (talk) 18:46, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

It may be true that grizzly bears and polar bears are entirely different "species," but I question whether that is based on concrete evidence with a justifiable source. I am just going with how the Biological Species Concept currently defines species: "a group of organisms that can successfully interbreed and produce fertile offspring." As I had said earlier, polar bears may not be a "true species" in their own right. Phil Candela found (in his article cited within the Ursus maritimus tyrannus article) that as recently as 10,000 years ago, "polar bears still had a high frequency of brown-bear-type molars and only recently have they developed polar-bear-type teeth." In essence, polar bears are still going through a transition, via allopatric speciation, to fulfill the ecological niche that they are currently in; this is evolution in the making!

The fossil record shows that Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans have been geologically separated hundreds of thousands of years longer than grizzly bears and polar bears have been separated. Yet, recent findings acknowledge that both human populations were still able to interbreed! Taking the current definition of species into account, modern humans and Neanderthals (despite physical appearance and some behavioral traits) don't seem to fall into different categories. -Ano-User (talk) 13:40, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Article Size: Time to split

At 112k, this article is currently too long per WP:PAGESIZE and will load very slowly on many connections as a result. Someone else already put a suggested split on the "Extinction" section, which looks like as good of section as any to split into a separate article. Other thoughts? --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:21, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

But there is already Neanderthal extinction hypotheses. In fact, a lot of sections here seem to have separate articles already. So what you really have to do is trim this article down. FunkMonk (talk) 18:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Yep. That is, someone needs to reduce these sections to 2-3 paragraph maximum summaries, while ensuring are relevant info is already in the sub-article. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:19, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not paper. I disagree this article is too long.Ryoung122 19:30, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

No one is questioning the value of the content. However, when a page gets over ~40k is is recommended that it be split for usability reasons. Over 100k is classified as "almost certainly should be split" and the reason is clear - the page takes forever to load on a slow connection. Which is more beneficial to the reader - having everything on one page that takes several minutes to load or having only summary information that loads quickly? The later option, of course, still allows the reader to make one extra click and get more information on sections that interest them. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:27, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Page prose size is 49k—not that long. The proposed article title Neanderthal admixture doesn't look good. —innotata 23:58, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Neanderthal admixture is a long-standing section-redirect, pointing to a section which in turn claims its {{main}} article is Neanderthal Genome Project. It is time to make this a standalone article indeed. Never mind its title, if you don't like Neanderthal admixture you can suggest alternative titles any time. The problem is that the accurate Possibility of interbreeding of Homo neanderthalensis with Homo sapiens is a little bit awkward.

The article needs to be WP:SS not just because it is too long but also to counter Wikipedia:Main article fixation. There are long-standing dedicated articles to these questions, yet when something pops up in the news, people flock to editing the main Neanderthal article instead of working on the dedicated articles which can then (after the details have been sorted out and stable summaries are possible) can make their way into the summaries in the main articles.

Main article fixation is a serious problem, it turns main articles into unstructured heaps of content and leaves the sub-articles unattended and littered with cleanup tags forever --dab (𒁳) 10:02, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I think WP:BOLD, and it's either one or the other: either the article swells to a lack of overview, or the sections become unreadable minor stubs. In both cases WP:BOLD can be considered a long term cure. Optimism is mostly a virtue. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 11:25, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. a merge is an hard thing not doable in 10 mins.
2. this an hot issue , right now on the main page, and thus, this section is a work in progress frequently edited ... HERE = not movable now ;
3. most of the content relate to interbreeding in ... Here.

So let's continue to work here (one place !) when that's still hot, we can split peacefully later. Yug (talk) 16:54, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

As FunkMonk has pointed out, we have an article Neanderthal extinction hypotheses, and to create yet another one from the current Extinction section would be absurd. The same is probably true of other sections. There may be a case for cutting down some of the material, but I do not think there is any case at all for fragmenting into yet more articles. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:10, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Yug, your assessment is in best faith, but it is also misguided. We need to profit of the topic being "hot" to work on it. If you ask people to stall cleanup efforts until the ITN attention goes away, the article will never improve. "most of the content relate to interbreeding in ... Here"? Read WP:SS. It's as easy as {{splitsection}}. Improving coverage substantially cannot be done in 10 min, but splitting a section to a sub-article can be done in 2.

JamesBWatson, nobody is suggesting we create "yet another" extinction article. The existing Neanderthal extinction hypotheses is the {{main}} article to this article's "Extinction" section. Most of the content currently in this section belongs merged into the existing sub-article. The new article we need is a dedicated article discussing the interbreeding scenario, whether it be called Neanderthal admixture or Neanderthal interbreeding hypothesis, or what, is a secondary concern. The important thing is that it is made a sub-article to both Neanderthal#Interbreeding_hypotheses and Neanderthal extinction hypotheses#Interbreeding. I am sorry, but this is rather elementary. It is our time-tested way to deal with complex topics. The alternative is a division of effort and a piling up of excessive detail in articles that should summarize larger topics. --dab (𒁳) 09:52, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

correcting the statement regarding humans of non-African descent ...

The article states: "it is now believed that humans of non-African descent are between 1% and 4% Neanderthal." A correction: "it is being suggested by recent research that while all modern human's are still mostly of African descent, there may be a 1% to 4% genetic non-African contribution that comes from the non-African Neanderthal." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.119.239.237 (talk) 14:20, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

"the non-African Neanderthal" - That statement creates the impression that there is a known African Neanderthal, which is not the case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.226.156.147 (talk) 18:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I have often observed that a lot of people go around our anthropology articles and insert phrases like "while all modern humans are still mostly of African descent" in all possible and impossible places. Even though this is completely undisputed. I really fail to see the point. All Neanderthals are ultimately "of African descent", just as all Orang Utans are, even though not a single Orang Utan ever lived in Africa. Seriously, this is a very unexciting point to be made on the Homo article: Homo emerges in Africa, 2.5 million years ago. What is being discussed here is what happened later, after 2 million years ago. --dab (𒁳) 15:09, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article on Neanderthal says that "... it is now believed that humans of non-African descent are between 1% and 4% Neanderthal ... " This is a wild and egregious misinterpretation of the articles that are ascribed to the quoted statement as footnotes. The quoted remark -- contrary to its own references -- seems to suggest that there are some humans who descend from Africa and some who don't, and some who have Neanderthal genetics and some who don't. In fact, the referenced sources make suggestions regarding the genetics found in all humans.69.119.239.237 (talk) 16:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Still preliminary ?

From what I gather, the study only involved the genomes of less than ten individuals. The study is still controversial as per the article in the New York Times. The findings of this study would need to be replicated by more independent studies, with larger sample sizes before they can be considered factual. It should also be mentioned that the authors offer an alternate hypothesis when they state

Although gene flow from Neandertals into modern humans when they first left sub-Saharan Africa seems to be the most parsimonious model compatible with the current data, other scenarios are also possible. For example, we cannot currently rule out a scenario in which the ancestral population of present-day non-Africans was more closely related to Neandertals than the ancestral population of present-day Africans due to ancient substructure within Africa (Fig. 6). If after the divergence of Neandertals there was incomplete genetic homogenization between what were to become the ancestors of non-Africans and Africans, present-day non-Africans would be more closely related to Neandertals than are Africans. In fact, old population substructure in Africa has been suggested based on genetic (81) as well as paleontological data"

There are suggestions in this AP article for wider sampling. Wapondaponda (talk) 02:05, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

There are at least 2 statements in the main article - in the summary and in Classification - that take the interbreeding hypothesis as being proven fact. This is an overstatement of the evidence. The evidence just shows shared genes, it does not prove interbreeding. The alternative explanation is that Neanderthals and other non-African humans share genes from a common ancestor, genes which have since dropped out of the African gene pool. The text should be amended at both points to include the alternative explanation - which, as noted above, was given by the authors of the referenced article.

Spike (talk) 13:29, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

"ethnic humans"?

resulting in non-African ethnic humans having between 1% and 4% more Neanderthal DNA than ethnic Africans.

How about "ethnic non-Africans"? It's clear from the context we're talking about humans.Originalname37 (Talk?) 12:04, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Why use the term "ethnic" at all? Geographic origin is not ethnicity. FunkMonk (talk) 14:07, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Not all Africans are ethnic/racial/genetic Africans. Perhaps "negroid"? But I'm sure that would be removed at the speed of light by the PC crowd. --Michael C. Price ^talk 18:41, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Should rather be sub-Saharan African, since North Africans do seem to have these genes. FunkMonk (talk) 08:14, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Done. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:58, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Homosexual neanderthals?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/10130240.stm

Related to the above article. Black Africans throughout Africa are adamant that homosexuality is not an African thing, whereas homosexuality was recorded in the history of European and Middle Eastern peoples, and in some of these societies homosexuality was/is celebrated. Part of the explanation for homosexuality is the existence of "gay" gene or genes. Obviously if there are gay genes then they are rare in black Africans. Could it be that the gay genes became wide spread in neanderthals (perhaps due to mutations) causing their demise, but that those who were not gay (but carried the gay genes)interbred with sapiens. This would then explain why black Africans have low rates of gays, whereas there is a minority but significant minority of Europeans who are gay. The figure of 1-4% neanderthal DNA also coincides with 1-4% gays among Europeans. Could the gay genes be genes inherited from neanderthals? This would explain why homosexuality is rare in black Africans, but much more common in Europeans (sapien-neanderthal hybirds), and why neanderthals eventually died out. 86.177.120.93 (talk) 23:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I get a lot of pleasure from reading Wikipedia, but not often a good laugh. However, that idea did it for me! Look, it's possible, but I suggest that you would need a VERY, VERY good source to put that in the article. HiLo48 (talk) 23:36, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not laughing at this one. It may be absurd but its unscientific nature disappoints me. There are plenty of places in Africa, and indeed elsewhere in the world where homosexuality is still heavily repressed and this article is just another demonstration of one of these places. Until generations after this has been resolved we're not going to see any accurate statistics on the amount of homosexuals anywhere. Even in countries where gay marraige is legalised I'm betting you can find older men and women who're married to the opposite sex and are still hiding their homosexuality.--Senor Freebie (talk) 23:39, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Can Senor name the places in Africa where homosexuality is still heavily repressed? And what percentage of people there would have been homosexuals had they not been "repressed"? Perhaps we can have some Black Africans' view on this. 86.185.177.129 (talk) 02:49, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

See e.g. [8]. View homosexuality in animals and homosexuality in general. It is very perplexing that so many species have very similar rates of homosexuality, even though the underlying cues for recognition of sex are entirely different in each species, and of greatly varying prominence. I see no plausible way that this can be viewed as some sort of biological aberration or mistake; for some reason evolution prefers a defined ratio of homosexual matings, despite the fact that the situation would appear to be almost a lethal trait in genetic (i.e. reproductive) terms. Why that is I can't say, but the overwhelmingly likely situation is that a low rate of homosexuality has continued from the first shrewlike mammals to modern humans without change. Wnt (talk) 05:12, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

But who said homosexuality is some sort of biological aberration or mistake? I certainly did not. Take the insect world of worker ants and bees, they are asexual. Take the sickle-cell gene, heterozygotes confer benefit against malaria, even though it is deadly for the homozygotes. Perhaps homosexuality in humans or neanderthals confer benefits onto their respective societies under certain conditions, for example homosexual males work but do not make the same demand on resources for offsprings, and homosexual females might care for the offsprings of other females without taking resources to produce their own. Therefore homosexuals are not in competition for mates and resources against the heterosexuals in their societies. In effect homosexuals are the equivalent to the worker bees and ants, and therefore if homosexuality is under genetic control, then the genes responsible are kept as in the case for the sickle-cell gene. We know that neanderthals died out, despite evidence that they were highly intelligent (after all they were another branch of humanity), so they must have been under quite a lot of stress for survival. Perhaps the homosexual genes conferred a survival advantage for their society as a whole. 86.185.177.129 (talk) 00:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I have known gay black Africans, and some have reached the news. It seems much more likely to me that homosexuality is denied and hidden for cultural reasons than that it is very rare. In any case, attempting to apply this to the Neanderthal demise is at best original research and at worst completely unsubstantiated speculation. Also the idea that 1-4% of he genome being derived from Neanderthals equates to 1-4% of the population exhibiting a trait which was common among Neanderthals is a complete misunderstanding of genetics. Finally, where does this figure of 1-4% of people being gay come from? I have never come across it before, and I have frequently come across higher figures. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:57, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

confusion re: "ethnic non-sub-Saharan Africans"

At 12:40, 17 May 2010, I changed "ethnic non-sub-Saharan Africans" to "ethnic Saharans" in the following sentence:

Current (as of 2010) genetic evidence suggests interbreeding took place with Homo sapiens between roughly 80,000 to 50,000 years ago in the Middle East, resulting in ethnic non-sub-Saharan Africans having between 1% and 4% more Neanderthal DNA than ethnic sub-Saharan Africans.

That change was immediately undone by Michael C. Price. I'm not sure why, but I think I misunderstood the intended meaning of the language, which is a little confusing, and my edit reflected my misunderstanding. If "ethnic non-sub-Saharan Africans" means "ethnic Africans who are not sub-Saharan," which is how I initially read it, I think it should be "ethnic Saharans" (or "ethnic Saharan and sur-Saharan Africans," if there is such a thing as the latter). If "ethnic non-sub-Saharan Africans" means "people who are not ethnic sub-Saharan Africans," then I think it should be worded as that or something similar, to protect readers from the same misunderstanding I had. If neither of my suggestions is appropriate, please explain why and update the article to reflect that explanation if appropriate. Capedia (talk) 01:19, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Good point. I've attempted to clarify the wording. --Michael C. Price ^talk 14:24, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Over in East Africa there are many people who have black skins but are hybrids of black Negroids with Arabs, Jews, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks etc. Therefore these black people are also sapiens-neanderthal hybrids by extension. 86.178.224.14 (talk) 22:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

It's all a matter of degree. --Michael C. Price ^talk 06:44, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Do non-Africans descend from the Neanderthals??

According to a BBC article, non-African humans today have Neanderthals among their forefathers. Does not this mean that we belong to the same species as them? If this is true, it means that a Neanderthal and "modern" humans could get offspring that could themselves produce children, grandchildren etc. As far as I understand this is the definition of belonging to the same species. --Oddeivind (talk) 16:26, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

That is 'one' definition of a species but others can be argued. Body shape/type, genetic diversity etc. 86.162.37.228 (talk) 20:39, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect Understanding of Percentages

In the Interbreeding section is the following sentence:

An estimated 1 to 4 percent of the DNA in Europeans and Asians (French, Han Chinese and Papua probands) is shared with Neanderthals rather than with Sub-Saharan Africans (Yoruba and San probands).

The percentages from the study are not absolute but relative (ie: it is not A is composed of x% of B, but rather A contains x% more of B than C does), and I think the phrasing of this sentence will likely make the reader think that it is an absolute measure. In other words, the African sample could have inherited 50% (for example's sake) of its DNA from Neandertal, which means Europeans would have inherited as much as 54% — a 4% difference — likewise, the African sample could have inherited no part of its DNA from Neandertal, which means the Europeans would have inherited as much as 4%. It is a relative measure. The baseline percentage of genes that come from Neandertal is unknown (and can't really be known until we compare our DNA to our non-neandertal predecessors' — id est, Cromagnon), but whatever that baseline is, the African sample represents it. It is not just this line that errs this way, I had noticed a couple other spots that assumed the same thing in this Wiki article. The intent of the study was to finally answer yes or no whether Neandertal and Cromagnon interbred, thus they were not looking to find the precise variation of gene contribution, they only were looking to see if there was a variation (if there was a variation, then it proved interbreeding). As a result, only 5 modern samples were used, and, the percentage only reflects the small handful of genes that non-Africans had that Africans did not have that they decided to test the Neandertal DNA for (they assumed these would be the most probable to have been Neandertal contributions, thus better ones to test for) — a wider selection of variant-genes would give a more accurate relative percentage, for a number of reasons, including they just simply happened to, by bad luck, pick the wrong set of genes to test for. It is not just this Wiki article that makes this mistake, a lot of people reading the news have incorrectly understood this. Could someone please correct the article, as well as come up with a way, in the article, to make clear what I over-explained above? — al-Shimoni (talk) 23:36, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

That's what the article used to say. I suggest you revert it back. --Michael C. Price ^talk 04:10, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree, and have changed the wording in the article. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, if the difference is between 50% & 54%, it's not a 4% difference, but only about 2.7% (54/50=2.7%). or 4 percentage points. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 19:26, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Promiscuity in Neanderthals and Sapiens

In the primate world, including the great apes, it is found that promiscuity increases with decreasing body size. Chimps are more promiscuous than gorillas, and bonobos are more promiscuous than the common chimps, and the smaller monkeys could be at it all day and night. Given that Neanderthals were bulkier than Sapiens, would Neanderthals be less promiscuous than Sapiens? And by extension would Neanderthal-Sapiens hydrids be less promiscuous than Sapiens? Certainly, anecdotally, black Africans (the pure or at least purer Sapiens)are seen to be more promiscuous than the other modern peoples, as evidenced by the level of HIV amongst both males and females in black Africa. 86.182.32.159 (talk) 01:16, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

That's a false causality if ever I heard one... The Neandertal promiscuity issue, tho, is an interesting one. IMO, it suggests (if correct) H.sap. may've survived due to more prolific exchange of genes (greater diversity). TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 05:39, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree with your second point. But how do you know it is a false causality? 86.182.32.159 (talk) 01:57, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

"more promiscuous than the other modern peoples, as evidenced by the level of HIV" HIV isn't caused by promiscuity, nor does increased promiscuity alone increase the rates. Much of Africa disbeleives there's a connection between sex & HIV, & is unwilling, or unable, to use condoms to prevent its spread. QED. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 00:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

What? Whether much of Africa believes or disbelieves HIV is transmitted by promiscuity is not relevant. Just because I believe God exists, does not mean God actually exists. For example, HIV in South Africa is very high amongst the Black population, but the infection level among Whites is very low. Indeed this is also true in the USA. The suggestion is, promiscuity is higher in pure Sapiens (Black Africans) than in Sapiens-Neanderthal hybrids. 86.182.214.22 (talk) 23:47, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Which proves my point: HIV rates have damn all to do with promiscuity per se; they have more to do with knowledge of how HIV is transmitted & the ability & willingness to prevent transmission. The same applies in South Africa as in South Chicago. Given most African blacks refuse to believe HIV is sexually transmitted, HIV rates have damn all to do with demonstrating Neanderthal promiscuity, & suggesting otherwise is a false causality. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 04:59, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Very poor wording in my opinion.

The following line should be edited:

and Caucasians and Asians having between 1% and 4% Neanderthal DNA.[4][5]

Remember if we are talking about "races" (or whatever you call it, this is not my field") a more proper term should be used. As Asian actually doesn't direct you towards any race but, actually, towards a geographical location.

Maybe Mongoloid (?) would be a better alternative then Asian?

My cents.

Best regards.

Oskar, Sweden