Talk:Neanderthal/Archive 6

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Expand on the debate between Neanderthalensis as a separate species or sub-species of Homo sapiens

suggestion (references not complete): Scientists to this day debate over whether Neanderthals should be classified as a distinct species - Homo neanderthalensis - or as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, the latter placing Neanderthals as a subspecies of H. sapiens. During the early 20th century the prevailing view has been heavily influenced by Arthur Keith and Marcellin Boule, who wrote the first scientific description of a nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton. Senior members of their respective national paleontological institutes and among the most eminent paleoanthropologists of their time, both men argued that this "primitive" Neanderthal could not be a direct ancestor of modern man. This idea was reflected in an erroneous and inaccurate reconstruction of the Neanderthal findings of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, mounted in a crooked pose with a deformed and heavily curved spine and legs buckled.

During the 1930s scholars Ernst Mayr, George Gaylord Simpson and Theodosius Dobzhansky reinterpreted the existing fossil record and came to different conclusions. Neanderthal man was classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis - an early subspecies of what was now called Homo sapiens sapiens. The obviously unbroken succession of fossil sites of both subspecies in Europe was considered evidence that there was a slow and gradual evolutionary transition from Neanderthals to modern humans. Contextual interpretations of similar excavation sites in Asia lead to the hypothesis of multiregional origin of modern man in the 1980s.

Contemporary views

Consensus prevails that both species evolved from a common African ancestor - Homo erectus. Fossil and tool finds support the idea that during the first migration wave of around 2 million years ago small groups of Homo erectus left Africa via the Levant, the Black Sea area into Georgia (fossils of Dmanisi) and possibly via North-western Africa towards southern Spain. The 1.2 million years old, highly fragmented finds in Spain are referred to as Homo antecessor by their discoverers and considered to be the ancestors of Neanderthal. This interpretation, however, is highly controversial and is not supported by the results of recent genetic research that deals with the relation of anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals.

Some 600,000 years ago a second propagation wave of African Homo erectus took place according to many paleoanthropologists. Skulls from that period found in Spain for example, suggest a brain volume of between 1100 ccm to 1450 ccm. The brain volume of fossils from the first propagation wave is however estimated only to be slightly above 1000 ccm. Homo erectus that arrived in Europe in the second wave of colonization developed into Neanderthals through the intermediate Homo heidelbergensis. Since about 200,000 years ago in Africa the so-called early anatomically modern humans descended from the local Homo erectus through the intermediate Homo rhodesiensis.

Debated remains the period when the Neanderthal lineage separated from the lineage that lead to modern man. In 2010 a period between 440000 - 270000 years B.P. was calculated by the molecular clock method. However, the reliability of molecular clocks is questionable as dating determined by stratigraphic methods varies considerably from those determined using the molecular clock. In 2012 recalculation of the mutation rates revealed evidence of a much earlier separation between 800.000 and 400.000 years ago.

References

ATBWikirictor (talk) 01:51, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I want to insert the above text into the section "Classification". Any opinions, objections, critique etc?

ATBWikirictor (talk) 01:23, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Semiprotection

Hi! Can some Admin please semi-protect the page. Excessive vandalism. ATBWikirictor (talk) 14:07, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

New research about interbreeding

Dear Sirs, a few months ago there was some research carried out, which discards the possibility that the Neanderthal (and other archaic hominids) DNA we modern humans have came through interbreeding (it most likely comes from the common ancestors our species share with them). It seems to be that, if there were Neanderthal/Sapiens hybrids, they were infertile. Please have a look at this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2083381-missing-y-chromosome-kept-us-apart-from-neanderthals/

May I ask for some administrator to update the article consequently? I would myself, but just in case my editions are mistaken for vandalism and get deleted, I prefer to let you do it.

This needs to be dealt with by someone who has access to the original source in the American Journal of Human Genetics at [1].

Also, near the end of the article it is stated that Neanderthals had speech. There is no evidence whatsoever to corroborate that. Although some scholars say that the fact they lived in large groups is an evidence they needed language, that is a preposterous argument: Simians also live in great numbers, and they have enough with ooking and eeking. It seems those anthropologists are totally uneducated in (neuro)linguistics. Language did not (and I insist, did not) emerge as a need to communicate, but as a way to categorize and make more complex thoughts. Please consider too removing that fallacious section of the article.

I have deleted the comments based on this source. A 2012 aricle in National Geographic is not a reliable source and some of the comments, such as on language are not in the cource. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:19, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

All the best. Chico duro (talk) 11:55, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Your argument is based on a misunderstanding of the research, which suggests that only male hybrids would be infertile. The idea that all sapiens/neanderthalensis hybrids were infertile is not reconcilable with the fact that neanderthal DNA is found in modern humans. Your argument on language is also not reasonable on the whole (the cocksure claim about what caused the evolution of language which is contradicted by most specialists in the evolution of language), although it is reasonable to note that we have no evidence for the presence of language among the neanderthal subspecies. But since the article states that Neanderthals probably had language that is not a problem. I dont know any scholars who suggest that it is improbable that neanderthals had language - if you can cite any that can be added to the article. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:02, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

No, the article doesn't say that male hybrids were infertile. It says male hybrids were miscarried, and hybrids in general were infertile. On the evolution of language, nobody know 100% how or when it appeared, but definitely there is not the slight evidence that would suggest Neandertals were capable of speaking.

Chico duro (talk) 12:07, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

No it does not. It says that neanderthal Y chromosomes are not found in modern humans because male line inhertiance was impossible. Given that neanderthal mtDNA and autosomal DNA is found in modern humans it is opbvious and generally accepted today that intermixing occurred and that hybrids were not infertile. What the article suggests (note that it is a tentative suggestion) is that maybe male line inheritance was impossible which could be explained if male hybrids were either miscarried or infertile. This would mean that fertile offspring could only be produced between Sapiens fathers and neanderthal mothers. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:22, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

In that case, it'd be a good idea, since we don't know whether Neandertals were able to use language, that they had some form of communication, whose level of complexity is unknown. What do you say? Chico duro (talk) 12:20, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I have reviewed the literature on Neanderthal language and there is clearly ongoing discussion, but as far as I can see there are is a small majority of scholars argueing that the preponderance of suggests they probably did But we should of course describe both views with more detail than is currently given.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:36, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Still, being serious here, we can only speculate whether they could use language or not. Some scholars say they could, but there are many who doubt it. And since there is no definitive evidence, we should be careful with the way we phrase that statement. By the way, we don't even know for sure whether the first Sapiens used language or not.

Also, I apologize for misunderstanding the article I offered. Apparently, two sentences I didn't grasp totally. Since English is not my native language I sometimes have a hard time reading technical texts like that. I honestly didn't want to act like a smart-alec or anything. Sorry again. Chico duro (talk) 12:40, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

No worries, I agree that the behavior section needs work and that we need some better explanation of the evidence used to argue for or against neanderthal language. This article lays out the debate from the perspective of the skeptics [2], and this one by Sverker Johansson is more positive.[3], and this one directly proposes that they must have had language though admittedly on somewhat skimpy evidence [4].·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:42, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your links. The skeptical article is brilliant. The other two... in my opinion rely too much on wishful thinking. Definitely, despite homo neanderthalensis being very often recognized as a subspecies of homo sapiens, that doesn't necessarily mean it was as capable as the latter. Although it's obvious that this is a complex issue, and it's important to be cautious when making assertions. Thank you again for a very good read. Have a nice day. Chico duro (talk) 13:11, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I think the skeptical article relies too much on a problematic theory of what language is and is not. I think that if one accepts as do Dediu and Levinson that language need not look much like modern human language but could be less complex and diverge in other ways from human communication some of the bite of their critique disappears. Regardless of whether they are a species or subspecies, neanderthals clearly lost the competition with H. sapiens, but we also should be cautious of thinking that this necessarily means that they were more apelike than humanlike.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:15, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, what you say is totally reasonable. I think the best idea would be to call hominid interaction (apart from sapiens') "communication" instead of "language". That way is an accurate one to call it, without assuming too much. Chico duro (talk) 13:16, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Here you have some info on the brain of other Homos and sapiens. Have a look if you like, I think it is very good: http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/brain.html

Chico duro (talk) 16:22, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi! handprint dot com is someone's personal hobby site - not precisely a scientific outletWikirictor (talk) 16:33, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

General Readability

Hi!
Reading the above section, i thought this is maybe a good moment to pick up on the subject and focus a bit on the article's structure and content. I guess Chico would have had an easier time with it, had it all been clearer structured and all redundancies and contradictions either removed or put in context (e.g. dealt with respectively in one paragraph). I have the feeling there are lots of cracks here, who could easily make this a GA or better, which it deserves as there is sufficient data.
I am aware, that it is a complex subject, which is particularly sensitive and contents must be exact and stand up to close scrutiny (god's children are watching). I know too, research on genetic kinship is still in full swing - Mr.Pääbo might announce tomorrow morning everything was wrong. Lots of scholarly debate is ongoing and as we see with Chico's sources, fringe ideas are rampant.

Anyway - below some suggestions, that would help readability without adding or re-editing much.

• I think the lead section should be more to the point (e.g. remove: "Remains left by Neanderthals include bone and stone tools, which are found in Eurasia, from Western Europe to Central, Northern, and Western Asia.")

• Too long: "Neanderthals are generally classified by paleontologists as the species Homo neanderthalensis, having separated from the Homo sapiens lineage 600,000 years ago, or alternatively, as a subspecies of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis)."

• Move to section Anatomy or shorten it: "Compared to Homo sapiens, Neanderthals had a lower surface-to-volume ratio, with shorter legs and a bigger body in conformance with Bergmann's rule, as an energy-loss reduction adaptation to life in a high-latitude (i.e. seasonally cold) climate. Their average cranial capacity of 1600 cm3[14] was notably larger than the 1250 – 1400 cm3 average for modern humans. Males stood 164–168 cm (65–66 in) and females 152–156 cm (60–61 in) tall.[15]"

• Section Name is too long.

• Section Discovery should be before Origin, which in turn should come before Classification.

• Timeline of research and Specimens/Chronology should be merged or get better organized.

• Behavior should get a clean up.

• Extinction hypotheses before Genome.

• Too much irrelevant stuff in: See also

Thanks for your attention and ATB
Wikirictor (talk) 17:03, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree, it needs a rewrite and reorganization based on more reliable academic sources.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:32, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikirictor is totally right. Now that it is mentioned, it is definitely true that theories sometimes change quickly. I remember when I was attending the last year of junior high school (year 1999-2000), we studied that by the time it was almost uniformly believed that neanderthals evolved into sapiens. Nowadays this view is not usually supported, and instead neanderthals (and denisovans) are usually regarded as separate (sub)species of homo sapiens. Who knows if, in a few years, the mainstream theory will change again, or even an old theory reemerge as the most widely accepted? It's hard to tell, considering the complexity of the issue we have at hand. Anyway, I'll do my best to contribute to the article, and related ones, with my humble knowledge (unlike you gentlemen, who seem to be experts, I'm just an aficionado). All the best. Chico duro (talk) 11:13, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Cryptozoology links

Do links to cryptozoology articles belong here? Kortoso (talk) 16:35, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

@Kortoso: No, they don't. Hm, where'd they go (looks around innocently). Doug Weller talk

Agreed There are more, e.g. Pleistocene Megafauna, Life timeline....and somebody seems to have a crush on Dawn of humanity - it is all over the place. ATB Wikirictor (talk) 05:11, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Relation to virtues of the neanderthal.

Species interact and evolve, in the same form and manner that they do today.

The Neanderthal did not die out (go extinct), the species evolved over several thousands of years in the same form and manner that the other branches of species evolved into either distinct branches or came together into a hutspotz of species (as is that tendency today).

Extinct, is when a species has not evolved and died out, or has been genocided, which for a differencial in two specimens that are seperate one from the other in terms of around a hundred thousand years in time, is not the case.

Placing the term: extinct, on this topic, is somewhat of a mistake, the correct term would be, evolved, descendent relationships unknown.

Extinct, by itself, is merely an opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.77.87.71 (talk) 14:40, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

What's the scientific consensus on the matter? How fringe are any other opinions? --Ronz (talk) 15:47, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Genetic relationships among neanderthals/modern humans/chimpanzees

The citation for the claim that chimpanzees "only share 96% of DNA with modern humans" is outdated -- it's a NatGeo article from 2005: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0831_050831_chimp_genes.html

The Chimpanzee page discusses the history of this science, and cites a more recent source -- a 2014 article in Scientific American -- that explains that the "recent sequencing of the gorilla, chimpanzee and bonobo genomes" confirms that chimpanzees and bonobos share approximately 99% of our DNA: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny-genetic-differences-between-humans-and-other-primates-pervade-the-genome/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by MxxL (talk • contribs) 15:47, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Usefulness of Location Map

Please see the Discussion page for File:Neanderthal position.png at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Neanderthal_position.png#Usefulness on Wikimedia Commons.--Frans Fowler (talk) 23:56, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

I have inserted coordinates into the double image caption. It is not THE solution, i know. It might help to inspire someone to do something great. All the best Wikirictor 01:54, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

It's good to give information on the location. However, the coordinates in the image caption don't work very well - the dropdown is clipped, and IMHO giving coordinates is too much detail for a caption. I replaced the coordinates with a link to the existing article on the location (Kleine Feldhofer Grotte), which gives the exact location for anyone interested. I also geotagged the photo. Sebastian (talk) 09:59, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

@ User:Sleske -Thanks a lot - looks good now! All the best Wikirictor 08:04, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

No known Neanderthal more recent than 40 ka?

(I transferred the following discussion from the talk page of Template:Homo neanderthalensis Nicolas Perrault (talk) 15:50, 1 April 2017 (UTC))

From 2011 onwards, following radiocarbon results by a team of the Oxford Institute of Archaeology, there was a major change in scientific consensus for the age of the extinction of the Neanderthals. No uncontaminated radiocarbon date of a Neanderthal, Mousterian, or Châtelperronian layer is demonstrably younger than 40 ± 1 ka (Higham 2011, Pinhasi et al. 2011, Wood et al. 2013, Higham et al. 2014). To change the extinction date to one more recent than 40 ka (as was widely believed before 2011), kindly cite on this talk page a scientific article more recent than 2011 that seriously challenges the well-received work of the above authors. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 11:46, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@Nicolas Perrault III: FWIW - Just now noticed this discussion - after updating the template to 24,000 years ago extinction date for Neanderthals - based on a relevant 30 October 2015 reference from the Australian Museum - hope this helps in some way - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:19, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@Drbogdan: Hey Drbogdan, many thanks for your interest in the date of the Neanderthal extinction! The scientific consensus changed recently and as far as I am aware no scientific research article published after 2011 has produced a Neanderthal radiocarbon date convincingly younger than 40 ka. Because radiocarbon dates for Neanderthal sites were of highly variable quality (an estimated 70% of them were contaminated), the radiocarbon accelerator team here at Oxford has spent five years redating 500 uncontaminated Neanderthal sites and found none that was convincingly older than 40 ka. Some outdated secondary sources will still show a date younger than 40 ka. The article from the Australian museum was written in 2010 or before as seen on the Wayback machine. The Australian Museum gives this outdated date of 30-28 ka (not 24 ka) only in passing, with no source, as if it were common knowledge. It does not discuss, criticise, or even acknowledge the post-2011 uncontroversial scientific work of the Oxford radiocarbon unit. (As a disclaimer, I should mention that I am a member of the Oxford Institute of Archaeology, but not of the radiocarbon team.) All my best, Nicolas Perrault (talk) 15:50, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@Nicolas Perrault III: Thank you for your comments - the "24,000" date was noted in the Australian Museum reference ("Last Updated: 30 October 2015") as "Lagar Velho – a 24,000-year-old skeleton ... described by its discoverers ... as a Neanderthal-Homo sapiens hybrid" - nonetheless - yes - agreed - seems the most substantial support at the moment may be the "40,000" date after all - *entirely* ok with me to update relevant Wikipedia articles if you like - in any case - Thanks again for your comments - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 16:45, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that "hybrid" identification is solid enough to propose the existence of neanderthals in that period. It is generally agreed that they were gone by 40k BP, that is the date we should use, proposed younger dates can be put in a note or side comment with attribution, untill there is clear evidence that consensus has shifted.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

That's my opinion as well. Inferring the existence of Neanderthals 24,000 years ago based on a single robust individual reminiscent of Neanderthals requires a string of inferential leaps, namely

• that the dating is correct
• that Neanderthals lived on and stayed under the archaeological radar bar this site for 16,000 years
• that the authors are correct in suggesting that the skeletal features are outside of modern human range
• that these more robust features are indeed inherited from Neanderthals and are not due to something else
• that the Neanderthal features came from Neanderthals that lived not long prior to the skeleton

Finding the first or last of something is always thorny. The consensus is indeed that there are no Neanderthals left after 40 ka, but for all we know they may have managed to survive a remote somewhere in Europe until, say, 37 ka (or deep in Norway to this day for that matter). The last known tool assemblages associated with Neanderthals at 40 ka is just our best guess. Regards, Nicolas Perrault (talk) 21:42, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I am with Nicolas and Maunus on this - until I see DNA from that supposed hybrid skeleton, Lapedo child, its status as a hybrid remains in doubt, particularly as it was contested at the time by others who saw no Neanderthal affinities. It doesn't look like this has been done (or, given the time that has passed, it was tried and failed), so we are left with the new 40K YBP consensus. Agricolae (talk) 00:48, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Just to throw a cat among the pigeons, is this 26K date solid, or might this also be a case of the same flawed dating? Agricolae (talk) 14:49, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

FWIW - yes - *entirely* agree with the comments above - the 40K YBP dating seems best at the moment of course - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:59, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

While the 40k date is now in the infobox, the article is now internally inconsistent - there are many fossils listed at the bottom of the page that are assigned more recent dates. Don't we need a comment down there that these are the original dates assigned, but may be subject to revised dating based on the 40K consensus? Agricolae (talk) 02:56, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Well spotted. Indeed they are confusing, I removed them entirely. Because different fossils may have had different levels of contamination, the old dates cannot even be usefully compared with one another, at least not by a layman. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 16:32, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

References

Might have worn capes

See [5]. Doug Weller talk 04:57, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

The study.[6]. Doug Weller talk 05:00, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Would you call this conclusive? :)

Kortoso (talk) 20:16, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

• Maybe even pointy hats...·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:49, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

2017 paper

I have reverted the report of a 2017 paper on changes to the voicebox of modern humans as it is a preprint of an article which has not been peer reviewed. Also the edit states that similar changes have not been observed in Neanderthals and Denisovans, whereas the paper states that the comparison was with chimpanzees, and it is unclear (at least from the abstract) what the basis is of the suggestion that the changes took place after the split from the line that led to Neanderthals and Denisovans. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:15, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

• I agree because of the current lack of scholarly comment. Articles signed Svante Pääbo and Johannes Krause are unlikely to be nonsense, but the importance of this find is yet unclear. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 22:26, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Extinction date

I came here from the article on "Gibraltar". That article states: "Evidence of Neanderthal habitation in Gibraltar between 28,000 and 24,000 BP has been discovered at Gorham's Cave, making Gibraltar possibly the last known holdout of the Neanderthals." Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:28, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

This is out of date. In 2014 Thomas Higham found that the late survival dates were based on faulty measurements, and there is no evidence that Neanderthals survived later than 40,000 years ago. This is covered in the article. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:41, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

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Behavior paragraph

I'm amazed that the recent finding of an eagle talon necklace written up in the journal Nature (March 11th 2015) has not been mentioned here. The journal unequivocally states that the talons were made into a necklace from the Neanderthal period in Croatia. It proves that Neanderthal humans wore jewelry. You need to add it here. the link is https://www.nature.com/news/neanderthals-wore-eagle-talons-as-jewellery-1.17095. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.252.183.253 (talk) 00:00, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Very few things in the study of Palaeolithic behaviour are "unequivocal". Sources that claim otherwise are usually biased. I wrote an essay earlier this year (by no means Wikipedia policy) in which I give my opinion on the reliability of twelve different kinds of sources (scholarly encyclopedias, popular science books, scientific articles, museum publications, etc.) when dealing with the Palaeolithic. I classified the news sections of scientific journals as the least reliable of all twelve and justified this as follows:

"News or comments sections of scientific journals: These suffer from the biases of scientific articles (being written by the same people), but are not peer-reviewed and often give much fewer inline citations. The result is that they are often among the most lopsided and sensationalist sources available online."

Incidentally, you may be interested in this section of the essay, in which I observed how different media outlets reacted to this very claim of Neanderthal jewelry (feathers and eagle talons), which I then used as a measure of how biased an outlet is.

Nicolas Perrault (talk) 09:25, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Species or Subspecies?

Comes 140.211.158.59 with a deletion to the text which states that Neandertals may be a species or a subspecies, leaving it saying only species.

As best I can determine with a cursory look, the jury is still out about whether Neanderthals are best classed as a species or a subspecies, and may well be so for years. While it is a bit awkward to require a source for a phrase deletetion, I think that we need one, at least in the Talk section, which reaches the conclusion through research and negates the arguments contrary, not "just cause I say so". Until then, best cover both possibilities. SkoreKeep (talk) 20:20, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

This may be the study that prompted that edit: But recent evidence keeps piling up showing that features are a mix-and-match affair, leading to the sub-species conclusion: . If I had my "druthers", I'd present the mixed POV as a teachable moment. Kortoso (talk) 20:41, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

As close as I can read your two references, they seem to point to the conclusion that Neandertals are a subspecies of H. sapiens, which is the opposite of what the edit I reverted said. Even your own conclusion seems to say subspecies.

Thanks for the input. I agree with it, I think, and I agree with your teachable moment. SkoreKeep (talk) 03:38, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Just to add a quote:

Ernst Mayr (1951):

"It is very probable that additional finds will make the delimitation of sapiens against Neanderthal even more difficult. It seems best to follow Dobzhansky's suggestion and to consider the two forms, as well as the ancestral group that seems to combine their characters, as a single species."

It looks like this needs to be opened back up, as the 'or subspecies' is again being deleted, this time basing it on a statement farther down the lead, but I have concerns over the statement that 'subspecies' is the minority opinion. We cite three sources - one from 2004 that seems to treat being a subspecies as if it was interchangeable with the Multi-Regional hypothesis, one from 2009 that is talking about it being an 'operative paleontological species' but it cites a single paper for this, and critically predates the DNA evidence that demonstrated interbreeding (2014), and the third comes in response to that result, too soon for the implications to sink in, quoting one scientist using the word species rather than subspecies. Only the first says anything about a trend, and it only does that with regard to an outdated model for it being a subspecies. On the flip side, we have the cites above in this thread, plus I can throw out a few more for it being subspecies: [7] [8] [9]. This really has been going back and forth for a long time, from 'they are just deformed, misshapen humans (h.s.)' to 'they are so different they aren't even humans' to 'they have enough cultural similarities that they are really humans' to 'they have no mitochondrial DNA in common so they aren't' to 'they inbred, so they are', and I don't think this can be dismissed using old references from before the last swing of the pendulum. Agricolae (talk) 05:22, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree that we should not pronounce on what is the minority opinion. We would need much better evidence to decide either way. As there is no definitive way of distinguishing between species and subspecies, the argument is unlikely to be settled in the foreseeable future. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:10, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

I will give it a go, although I wish there was a better recent source that is explicit - of my cites, one is generic, one uses the subspecies name without addressing the issue (and isn't exactly representative of the scientific community), and one paradoxically calls them "human subspecies Homo denisovan and Homo neanderthalensis" (i.e. giving them species names). The CSM article is perhaps the best, as it quotes someone saying all archaic Homo represent a single species, but that is one person's opinion (not that quoting Reich referring to them as a species that we now cite isn't). Agricolae (talk) 15:58, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

I just went through and tried to eliminate the use of Homo sapiens alone to represent anatomically modern humans (H.s.s.), and "species" to rperesent Neanderthal (except in direct quotes) made necessary by this decision to ride the fence over the species/subspecies question. Would someone please give it a look to be sure I didn't bullox anything? Agricolae (talk) 15:42, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Even though it has been suggested that Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis are the same species. Unilaterally they seem to be described by its own scientific name. So I would like to Suggest if we Remove Homo Sapiens from The Right Taxonomy Box that displays Species as " H. neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens" To reflect just Homo Neanderthalensis as well as from "Binomial Name Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens" to just Homo neandderthalensis --Mikejones675 (talk) 11:11, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Neanderthals are currently classified as a separate species. A substantial minority of scholars would like to see it reclassified as a subspecies. Many scholars are also taking a wait-and-see attitude, as DNA evidence is coming in at an exponential rate. I think it's a mistake to present the two opposing views on an equal footing. One is currently the dominant view, the other is a proposed alternative. On the other hand, if the proposed alternative is sufficiently notable, it should be worth a mention. For example, the taxobox could say "Homo neanderthalensis" and then on the line below, in parentheses, "proposed alternative: Homo sapiens neanderthalensis."Zyxwv99 (talk) 17:49, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Maybe someone can help me out here, but seeing as we discovered the existence of Neanderthal DNA in most humans, doesn't that extinguish the idea that they're a separate species from humans, given the rather inarguable definition of what constitutes a species? Like, I realize that for the longest time we presumed that they were a different species but now that we've proven that they interbred with humans and produced fertile offspring and most everyone of a certain descent has at least some Neanderthal DNA in them, how is this even still arguable? Wouldn't it require a completely novel interpretation of what constitutes a 'species' for us to consider them anything other than human? Sorry if this is a dumb question that maybe has an obvious answer, but the only 'argument' here seems to be the non-argument of inertia associated with old beliefs stemming from inaccurate science that has since been rendered obsolete. Xyxer (talk) 10:30, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

The problem is that there is no absolute and final definition of "species" in biology. The criterion of interbreeding is not completely watertight and often more of a guideline, so some scholars continue to think that neanderthals and Sapiens should be classified as separate species because of the significant behavioral and anatomical differences, and the fact that it doesnt seem that there was long time sustained mixing between the two populations.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:39, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

In one sense, there is a completely novel interpretation of what constitutes a species, or rather, what doesn't. In the genomic era, we have become aware of numerous examples of introgression - the result of rare interspecies interbreeding events having passed small amounts of DNA from one (as was thought) species to another (e.g. wolves and coyotes, dogs and coyotes, cattle and bison, numerous cases in plants), and we also have accumulated enough knowledge of the events leading up to reproductive isolation, that we have an appreciation of genetic speciation as a progression, not a switch, and as such there is no defined non-arbitrary point at which to draw a line and say, 'right then, with that one mutation, they became different species.' Pääbo, the discoverer of the Neanderthal interbreeding, explicitly addresses this in his book. Given the willingness of discoverers to advance new species names over the most subtle differences, (to the degree where I have seen it said in irony regarding paleoanthropology, "if I found it, it is a new species, if someone else found it, it is only a subspecies"), I think we have to give weight to his hesitance to come down on either side. He says,

"Many would say that a species is a set of organisms that can produce fertile offspring with each other, and cannot do so with members of other groups. From that perspective we had shown that Neanderthals and modern humans were the same species. However, the concept has its limitations. For example, polar bears and grizzlies can (and occasionally do) produce fertile offspring with each other when they meet in the wild. Yet polar bears and grizzlies look and behave differently, and are adapted to different lifestyles and environments. It would seem rather arbitrary, if not outright ridiculous, to refer to them as one and the same species. We didn't know whether the fact that Neanderthals contributed perhaps 2 to 4 percent of the genes of many present-day humans meant that they were the same or different species." (Svante Pääbo, Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes, p. 237) Agricolae (talk) 11:32, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

References

Their descendants living among us : White people

Wouldn't it be helpful to add that white people are their living descendants? Isn't it true that the original neanderthals may be extinct but their hybrid descendants are still living among us? To say they are extinct when we got their descendants living among us would be factually inaccurate.2.27.120.93 (talk) 09:49, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

No, because it would be incorrect. There are neanderthal descendants in all continental populations due to 40,000 years of subsequent genetic flows. Also that a dinosaur has descendants today does not mean that it is not extinct. Neanderthals do not exist today, regardless of whether some of their genes exist in other species. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:59, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Also as Maunus would agree, the Fst between modern humans and Neanderthals is less than 25% so Neanderthals didn't exist. I don't really understand that but Maunus is super smart so he can explain it to you. He would never parrot PC nonsense and edit it into an encyclopedia. Maunus don't you think you should be editing this article to show that Neanderthals are a social construct because reliable source Templeton said so? Diane Diamond (talk) 10:51, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Maunus is correct. Billions of people may have Neanderthal genes. And many of the people you classify as white might not. Meanwhile I note that you are mimicking some of the sock puppets that infest Wikipedia in your (pretty dismal) attack on Maunus. Doug Weller talk 13:12, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

£vidently almost everyone outside Africa (and probably many in Africa) have a trace (1 to 2%) of Neanderthal genetic heritage.[10]. Doug Weller talk 13:19, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Editor blocked as a sock of racist Mikemikev. Doug Weller talk 16:04, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Updated and sourced the range map

Hope you guys like it. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 21:05, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Now I see. You have to click on the map and see the revision history on Wikimedia Commons. Good work. Thanks. Zyxwv99 (talk) 14:33, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Looks good but Sicily should not be in blue, as there is no evidence that the Neanderthals reached the island. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:36, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Y Done. Good eye Dudley. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 15:14, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Neanderthal male modern female interbreeding info outdated and wrong

I have removed statements from this article indicating that there is evidence of interbreding between Neanderthal females and modern human females. This was based on the Mezzena mandible which was said to belong to a late MP Neanderthal hybrid, but which has been re-dated and analyzed genetically and proven to be a Neolithic modern human.

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep29144

There is no evidence of modern human males ever having produced offspring with Neanderthal females. All genetic evidence is consistent with Neanderthal males breeding modern human females.

Thank you for your attention.

OrlandoRegistrar (talk) 06:20, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

The problem is that the converse argument is also true. The argument presented for male Neanderthal/modern females, at least as we present it in the first part of that paragraph, is based on the absence of female-inherited Neanderthal mtDNA in modern humans, suggesting that no female Neanderthal was able to produce fertile offspring by a modern male. However, the exact reverse argument is equally valid - there is no evidence of modern human females ever having produced offspring with Neanderthal females, since no Neanderthal Y-DNA is found in modern humans, which by the same logic means no male Neanderthal managed to produce fertile offspring by a female modern. Yet both can't be true since we know there was interbreeding. That means neither of these parallel arguments is valid. Did you have some other genetic evidence in mind? Agricolae (talk) 06:53, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Neither Neanderthal MTDNA nor Y-DNA in modern living humans are necessary for the interbreeding events to have occured exclusively between Neanderthal males and modern human females. The presence of nuclear DNA has been use to demonstrate paternal bias inheritance in both Neanderthals and Denisovans.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/321.full

The genomic evidence suggests that gene flow from the Denisovans may have been largely male-mediated, providing some clues about the nature of the interactions (4)

M. Meyer et al., Science 338, 222 (2012).

The Neanderthals themselves did have modern human MTDNA, which was another recent find which probably does belong in this article. This is a report on a study, not the actual study, which I will post later as it is all I have right now in my tabs:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/18/did-human-women-contribute-to-neanderthal-genomes-over-200000-years-ago

Another thing to note is that we don't actually know for sure whether or not we have any Neanderthal Y-DNA. So far only one Neanderthal specimen has actually yielded Y-DNA. That Y-haplotype is not known to occur in any living people, but Neanderthals could have had diverse Y-DNA as modern humans do, and we wouldn't know any better because we have only sequenced one Neanderthal Y-haplotype.

Non-African Y-DNA is suspiciously younger than non-African MTDNA, and the explosion of non-African Y-haplotype diversity does chronologically coincide with the proposed interbreeding events as modern humans left Africa. Greg Downey has an interesting article about this which, although it has no place in this article, is nevertheless an eye opener.

http://blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropology/2010/10/26/the-neanderthal-romeo-and-human-juliet-hypothesis/

Talk to you later. OrlandoRegistrar (talk) 08:18, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, let's say nuclear DNA has been used to 'suggest' (not demonstrate) paternal bias inheritance, but that is not what our article says. We say that the absence of Neanderthal mtDNA is evidence for this, which isn't really the case. As to not knowing there are no Neanderthal Y chromosomes, you have to turn some pretty elaborate mental gymnastics to maintain this in the face of the earliest-branching Y-DNA being found in Cameroon with an estimated branching time well after the modern human/Neanderthal split (and well before any dating given for the first modern/Neanderthal interbreeding). That blog post was jumping to conclusions when written and subsequent findings have negated its entire premise. Even were Y chromosome divergence to date from 59,000 years, there was one thing happening at this time, a rapid expansion of non-African modern humans that would independently account for both events without one being the cause of the other. Such an expansion would have independently resulted in the expansion of a single Y lineage, and brought modern humans into contact to interbreed with Neanderthals. There would be no reason whatsoever to hypothesize that it was Neanderthal Y DNA that was expanding, and that it somehow found its way back throughout Africa without taking nuclear DNA with it. And that would be the case even if it was true that Y-DNA was 'suspiciously younger' than mtDNA. I don't even think this was true in 2010, but it is certainly not true in 2017. Indeed, the date of 59,000 years ago used in the blog for the Y-father is well off the mark. The earliest branch of the modern human Y tree is more than 300,000 years back and, as I said, this most divergent lineage is found in Cameroon. One could speculate that this is the result of a now-lost African archaic human lineage interbreeding to introduce it into this village, but Africa is were we would expect the most divergent modern human Ys were it a simple dispersal scenario, without any introgression events, and Occam would favor zero inter-species introgressions over the multiple ones that would be necessary to ad hoc this away. As to 'Neanderthals themselves did have modern human mtDNA', the fact of the matter is that there is no strong consensus on how to make sense of the decidedly odd mtDNA data derived from the ancient DNA work. Agricolae (talk) 11:08, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Fascinating story. When the science is as debatable as this, we ought to rely only on the best consensus (secondary review articles) and avoid all speculation as to what individual research findings may mean. The most we should do is to mention that there is primary research evidence (supplying refs) which is conflicting and hard to interpret. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:08, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Agricolae -- you are confused. I am going to keep this simple to avoid further confusion.

1.) We do not know when the first episodes of Neanderthal interbreeding took place. The presence of modern human MTDNA in European Neanderthals over 200,000 years old proves it happened in locations and at dates which it had been previously unexpected to occur.

2.) An expansion out of Africa is unlikely to result in the appearance of multiple Y-DNA haplotypes instantaneously. It is more likely they had already been evolving outside Africa -- possibly among Neanderthals.

3.) The oldest Y-DNA lineage is not over 300,000 years "back." It is roughly 200,000 years back.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ejhg2013303

However, see point 5.

4.) Neanderthal nuclear DNA is found at low frequencies in Africa, including central and south Africans. Low but non-zero amounts.

5.) New research has revised the human Y-DNA phylogentic tree. The authors of this paper find a high degree of shared alleles between the El Sidron Neanderthal and Y-haplogroups A, B, C, D, and E.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/01/18/101410

OrlandoRegistrar (talk) 18:16, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Not confused, just siding with Occam against this decidedly unlikely scenario you prefer. The 'instantaneous' appearance of a lot of Y haplotypes is absolutely evidence for rapid expansion, whatever its source, and introgression from Neanderthal doesn't explain it at all. Even with a re-dating (which I hadn't seen) the most divergent Y is still found in Cameroon, which again doesn't point to a Neanderthal origin, and unlike northern, eastern and southern Africa, in a region with minuscule amounts of Neanderthal DNA, and what little it has likely due to historical and not prehistorical interactions. Oh, and biorxiv is not a reliable source by its very nature, being entirely self published. If you want to present a new Out Of Europe interpretation, you need to wait until it becomes consensus, or at least an accepted alternative. Agricolae (talk) 20:30, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

It may be worth mentioning that unlike a scientific journal, Wikipedia strongly prefers review papers to primary research, and indeed is wary of accepting anything that is only found in a single primary source. See WP:RS for details of this policy. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:38, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I was hinting at, but in retrospect I should have been explicit. Passing peer review and formal publication is just the first step. As the Y DNA early branch dating shows, a single scientific report can be wrong, or it can just be so 'out there' that nobody knows what to make of it, and it doesn't represent Wikipedia-worthy consensus opinion or even a noteworthy alternative until other scientist start talking about it that way in secondary sources (and not just at-the-time-of-publication commentary pieces). Only at that point does it merit inclusion, so a biorxive contribution is way early, years early probably, in the process. Agricolae (talk) 21:37, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

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Fully human?

I notice a lot of people call Neanderthals and other groups such as Denisovans as "hominin" rather than "human". Yet they interbred with us and most populations have some of their DNA in their genomes. And it used to be even higher[11]. So shouldn't they be called humans as well? Maybe a subspecies of Homo sapien? Also realize that Neanderthals made clothes, had capability for speech (FOXP2), made string, leather, glue, art and controlled fire. 198.85.118.24 (talk) 19:30, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Several discussions of this question can be found in the archives of this Talk page, most recently here: [12] Yes, humans do those things, but is doing those things what makes us humans or is it possible that a non-human hominin might also be able to do them? As to FOXP2, it is thought necessary for speech, but it is going to far to say it is sufficient, that having that gene automatically means they had the capability of speech. Agricolae (talk) 20:33, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Good point but I would like to point out that Neanderthals had the same or very very close type of FOXP2 as H. sapien sapiens. [13]

Maybe it's possible non human animals to do those things, however since we only see humans do it, I would assume that "hominin" entities that do the same are humans, along with the other points I mentioned above.137.118.104.149 (talk) 01:44, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

OK, if that is how you want to define being human, that would make neanderthals human. However, your argument is a bit circular - you can't say we only see them in humans unless you have already decided that neanderthals are humans, so you can't then use this to deduce that neanderthals were humans because they have the characteristics. You are begging the question by deciding the characteristics they share are the ones that define being human and then using it to ask whether they are human. Anyhow, Wikipedia content does not derive from the personal viewpoints of its editors, nor with something this controversial from the professional viewpoint of a single scientist - it aims to represent the consensus of the field, and in this case, there isn't one. To some, neanderthals fulfill the criteria for being human, for others, neanderthals fulfill the criteria for being an independent species, and for some the whole argument is just a pointless exercise, a distraction, since there is no uniform definition of species that describes the neanderthal/human relationship in such a way that a definitive answer is possible, or will ever be possible. As to FOXP2, I don't even know how to interpret "very very close type of FOXP2", and I don't see how it addresses the caveat I raised. I said that FOXP2 may be necessary but insufficient, and you say FOXP2 is very similar as if that would somehow compensate for it being insufficient. All of the 'FOXP2 is the master speech gene' analysis arose in an era when every scientist discovering a gene tried to give it grandiose unitary importance and ignore the role of gene interactions, just like with the 'love hormone'. Further, 'very very close' is very very meaningless, when a single nucleotide difference that isn't even in the coding sequence can completely change where, when or how much of a protein is expressed, even turn it off completely. Agricolae (talk) 03:00, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough.137.118.104.149 (talk) 00:37, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

In the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of human evolution, the entry for "human" reads:

"human (L. humanus = people) This term is used in many ways but it should be reserved for referring to either the species within the genus Homo, or to the species Homo sapiens, or to individuals within those species."

Therefore, if one considers them to be a separate species, Neanderthals can be considered either human or not. Neanderthals, however, are uncontroversially hominins, so that term is preferred. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 17:02, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Neanderthals are uncontroversially members of Homo, not just Hominini, and the adjective for the genus Homo is "human". The controversial part is just, should they be classed as "Homo sapiens". Of course humans are also hominins, and mammals, but we don't call Neanderthals "mammals" or "vertebrates" just because it is uncontroversial that they are members of these groups. Calling them "hominins" implies that they are outside of the genus Homo, which they are not.

Even worse, the term archaic humans was coined expressly to include Neanderthals as opposed to Cro Magnon. So let's call them that.

--dab (𒁳) 05:30, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

People seem to think because they interbred with Homo sapiens that it makes them the same species. Interspecies mating with successfully reproductive children is seen with Lions and tigers (yes, ligers are fertile and have had children of their own); and so just because there were some fertile hybrids doesn't make them Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Neither is being homo make a species human, being sapiens makes one human. Homo erectus was not human, homo heidelbergensis either. Only Homo sapiens. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8806:3004:6D00:CC69:D6CB:D89B:64EE (talk) 17:17, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

This isn't a forum for discussing their humanity. The only issue is what the sources say. These call them our closest human relative.[14]The Smithsonian Doug Weller talk 18:07, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

To be fair, if we tell people to "just follow the source", we end up with the steaming pile of journalism this page has now become. Ideally, editors will have a basic grasp of the topic and will be able to build an informed synthesis of the literature.

The state of this page is absolutely terrible. The discovery of admixture is eight years old now, it is understandable that this was treated as preliminary at first, but by now evidence has piled up and a summary should be written based on current knowledge. Instead we get a stratigraphic accretion of lazy additions of press reports over the last few years.

On the "species" question, people underestimate just how poorly defined the term is. We have a full article on this, Species problem. This is not the place to discuss basic questions about taxonomical ranks. It is perfectly sufficient to say that some experts prefer classification as species, others as subspecies. This is of some interest to the page Human taxonomy (especially for the term Homo sapiens sapiens, which was only coined in conjunction with Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and should not be used in conjunction with Homo neanderthalensis) but it should not be expanded upon on this page. --dab (𒁳) 08:10, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Is there still a fossil gap in MIS 8 (300,000-243,000 years ago)?

There is a sentence here, referenced to a single paper from 1998, that makes a strong claim: "There is a fossil gap in Europe between 300 and 243 ka (MIS 8); no hominin has ever been dated to this period." The paper referenced is entitled On the phylogenetic position of the pre-Neandertal specimen from Reilingen, Germany (1998). Although following the link in our ref gets you to a paywall, you can get the whole paper for free if you search for the title on Google Scholar.

I'm not expert enough to know if this statement is still valid, but I found a paper that says: "Well-dated MIS 8 sites in Europe are rare." The paper's title is: The Emergence of Neanderthal Technical Behavior : New Evidence from Orgnac 3 (Level 1, MIS 8), Southeastern France (2011) (available for free on Google Scholar). It gives a list of Neanderthal sites in Europe, but I don't know which ones have actual fossils or just artifacts. Here is the list from the paper.

France: La Micoque (level L2/3, end of MIS 8?), Baume Bonne (Ensemble II–III), Gentelles (level CLG), Gouzeaucourt, Achenheim (level 20)

Germany: Ariendorf 1

Poland: Rozumice 3 (e.g., Foltyn, Kozlowski, and Maciej 2005; Goval 2005; Tuffreau, Lamotte, and Goval 2008)

Zyxwv99 (talk) 18:38, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

I wrote this sentence. This source is indeed old and new bones are found every year, so an update would be welcome. In the meanwhile, I'll add "As of 1998" in front of the sentence. I'm building a list of Neanderthals on my User Page, but the early Neanderthal section is far from complete. For what it's worth, none, even Biache St-Vaast, is conclusively MIS 8.

Note that the overwhelming majority of Palaeolithic sites have no human bones. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 13:39, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

After having a look, it seems that no new discoveries have been made that would change the situation. There is a fossil gap in the whole of MIS8 (300-243 ka) except for the very beginning and end. For the whole of MIS9 (337-300 ka) there is talk of pre-Neanderthals and Neanderthal-type implements, maybe an occasional paleontologist who goes out on a limb and calls a fossil from this period "Neanderthal" but it seems to be the exception not the rule.

However, this brings up a related problem with this article. There are two definitions of Neanderthal, the older one from morphology, and a new one from cladistics. Both definitions are currently in use and considered valid. Every branch of science has terms with more than one definition, sometimes strongly overlapping but different enough that a distinction needs to be made. In paleontology it's common to have cladistic definitions alongside morophological definitions. Neanderthals by the morphological definition are based on the holotype skeleton Neanderthal 1, and its characters (traits). These can be reliably diagnosed going back to the end of MIS8. By the cladistic definition, Neanderthals begin at the split between Neanderthals and Denisovans (~450 ka or according to one estimate, 465+-15 ka). This is a completely separate issue from the split between the ancestors of anatomically modern humans (AMH) and the Neanderthal/Denisovan ancestors (a branch of Heidelbergensis).

I think it's important for us to not try to reconcile these definitions, since that would be original research. Instead, we should emphasize the distinction. Zyxwv99 (talk) 20:22, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

It is probably premature to give a "cladistic definition of Neanderthals". Too much interbreeding was going on, and it is far from clear how "Denisovans" should be classified (possibly as partly-Neanderthal hybrids?)

If there is a fossil gap during 300-243 kya, I would be interested in the last fossils before 300kya, how are they classified, as H. heidelbergensis? Can we have get a direct comparison of the 300 kya fossil with the 243 kya fossil? How similar are they? It is fine to limit "Neanderthals" to "after 250 kya", in the sense of a chronospecies. The heidelbergensis during, say, 600kya to 250kya would then just be "pre-Neanderthals". Once cladistics is cleaned up, people will still be able to shift the "Neanderthal" back to 500kya, or 465kya, or whatever is cladistically convenient, but we aren't well advised to keep fiddling with taxonomy based on preliminary cladistic estimates. --dab (𒁳) 09:45, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

There will obviously be disagreements on where to draw the line in gradual transitions, but most paleontologists seem to regard the 400,000 year old Swanscombe skull as early Neanderthal and the 500,000 tibia from Boxgrove as heidelbergensis. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:54, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

1 inch height variation range within each gender....really???

Even if they're just Homo n., but especially if they're Homo sapiens n. ---- I call b.s. Since, forget people from Guinness records or tv or whatever, even the small subset of Homo sapiens girls I've personally dated has a height range of 19 inches --- 4ft. 9in. to 6ft. 4in. (same ethnicity, same city btw).

I daresay such a small variation is therefore impossible. Hell, even a single skeleton's height cannot be estimated to such a small range.

Yes, on its face that is unlikely, given that diet alone can cause larger variation, but the problem seems to be with how the sentences are framed: that males "averaged 164 to 168 cm" is unclear. Is this range a standard deviation from a single experiment, some kind of fudge-factor reflecting their uncertainty in extrapolating height from average long-bone length, the range covered by the individual averages determined independently, or what? In short, this is not the entire range of height but something else, I just can't tell what from the description in the paper's abstract, which says the same ambiguous thing. Agricolae (talk) 15:30, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

More clarity would certainly help, but I'm taking this to mean the species median (or average) varies within a narrow range, & males average slightly taller, based on discovered examples (which may not be entirely representative, by any means). Among H.sap., as a cross-species average, I'd bet males aren't enormously taller than females on the same average: height variations across populations will tend to cancel (combining Pygmies & NBA players, frex). TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 17:59, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

That males were taller than females is indeed found in the data reported, but that aspect of it is treated as totally unremarkable in the abstract. Their central conclusion was that Neanderthals were similar in stature to recent humans. They didn't look at that many specimens: with multiple bones from some, they looked at just 14 male individuals and for females only seven, so what exactly does it mean to say that the 'median varies within a narrow range'. With an 'n' of 7 females, they wouldn't have the numbers to generate more than one statistically-valid median, which would result in no variation at all unless they obtained a single median or average long-bone length and the reported variation comes from the uncertainty in the extrapolation from that to overall height. Or the number could be some indication of the actual range of the data obtained, such as average +/- two StdDev. To add to this, since it is a German journal and the sole author often published in German, there may be a language translation issue with the original abstract. There just is no way of guessing our way around this. Someone needs to look at the text of the paper and find out what the author is trying to represent by those numbers. If nobody has access to the paper itself (JSTOR anyone?) then we need to be very careful in dealing with this 'average range'. Agricolae (talk) 20:17, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I cannot get access to it through EBSCO and I am not clear that it was published in a peer-reviewed journal. I suggest deleting as unclear and possibly not a reliable source. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:26, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I went ahead and signed up for a JSTOR account, which gives you 6 free views per month. Five now. And the answer is . . . . . He used three different published methods of extrapolating height from long bone length and determined the average for each method. The ranges represent the high and low averages from the three approaches (which by the way were not the same - one approach gave the high for both male and female, but the lows for the two come from different approaches). As best I can tell, it was peer reviewed, but was succeeded by/merged into another peer reviewed title, Anthropologischer Anzeiger, in 2002. I think it is a legitimate citation, once the meaning of the numbers is clarified. Agricolae (talk) 00:49, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Changes made to text. I will give others a chance to optimize it, then take it over to Neanderthal anatomy, where the same language was used in summarizing Helmuth. Agricolae (talk) 01:09, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

is there a source for this sentence?

Both Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans were initially thought to have evolved from Homo erectus between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. H. erectus had emerged around 1.8 million years ago, and had long been present, in various subspecies throughout Eurasia. --Man.Mich (talk) 18:58, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Seems more like common knowledge to me, I don't know of a specific source that said that however. I will say that it could be clarified better, as not everyone agrees that Homo erectus is the ancestor, instead it could be Homo Antecessor, early Homo sapiens, or H. heild..137.118.100.41 (talk) 01:32, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Authority for the name Homo neanderthalensis

Our article, and many sources, give "King, 1864" as the authority for the name Homo neanderthalensis (e.g. doi:10.1016/S0047-2484(02)00208-7). However, if you look at the article cited [15], it's only mentioned in the footnote on p. 96, where King rejects the name, which he had used in a paper read to a meeting of the British Association, which was in 1863 according to [16]. If that paper wasn't published independently of the one linked here, then was the name validly published? Peter coxhead (talk) 15:37, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

I have another question: if King was repudiating the name in the cited paper, why aren't we? Why are we instead relying on it as authority? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 19:01, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Personally I call that people group a subspecies of Homo sapien. We have people similar to them in anatomy today and there is a fair amount of evidence they behaved very similar to modern people. For that matter I also think Rhodesia and Heidelberg Man should be considered to be Homo sapien.137.118.100.86 (talk) 20:30, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, if the name was validly published in the first place by King, his later change of mind as to whether the fossil belonged in Homo is irrelevant. However, if his only published use of the name was to disown it, then I'm not sure if that is acceptable under the ICZN. But the Code needs an expert to interpret it, which I certainly am not. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:02, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth, using the relatively blunt instrument of a Google Books date limit, the name appeared twiceat least five times in publications of the previous year, plus in the formal abstracts of the meeting where it was presented, which weren't published until after King's article in which he repudiated the genus name (but not the species name):

• Anthropological Review vol. 1 (III, November 1863):393=394, "The Neanderthal Skull", (part of Anon., "Anthropology at the British Association" 379-464). ". . . he saw no reason to believe otherwise than that similar darkness characterized the beings whom he did not hesitate to call Homo Neanderthalensis."[17]
• The Geologist, vol. 6, (October 1863): 392-393, "On the Neanderthal Skull. By Professor W. King.", (part of "British Association Meeting at Newcastle" 364-395). Identical summary.[18]

• (added) The Athanaeum No. 1875 (3 October 1863), p.437 (part of "SCIENCE: British Association: Section C = Geology") "‘On the Neanderthal Skull, or Reasons for believing it to belong to the Clydian Period, and to be specifically distinct from Man, by Prof. W. KING.—The author contended. . . .Applying the above argument to the Neanderthal skull, and considering its close resemblance to that of the Chimpanzee, and, moreover, knowing that the simial peculiarities are unimprovable—incapable of moral and theositic conceptions, – I see no reason to believe otherwise than that similar darkness characterized the beings whom I do not hesitate to call Homo Neanderthalensis." [19]
• (added) Das Ausland, vol. 36, No. 44 (23 October 1863) p. 1056 "Homo Neanderthalensis" (part of Anon., "Miscellen") (? translation of previous into German) ". . . Wenn ich nun das obige Argument auf den Neanderthaliſchen Schäde anwende, ſeine große Aehnlichkeit mit dem des Tſchimpanſ in Betracht ziehe, und überdieß weiß daß die Affeneigenthümlich keiten unverbeſſerlich ſind – unfähig moraliſcher und gött licher Begriffe – ſo ſehe ich keinen Grund anders zu glauben als daß ähnliche geiſtige Dunkelheit die Weſen kennzeichnee denen ich unbedenklich den Namen Homo Neanderthalensis gebe." [20]
• (added) The American Annual Cyclopædia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1863, 377, (part of "Enology and Anthropology", 371-388) "The Neanderthal Man.—Prof. Wm. King read before the Brit. Assoc. a paper upon this subject. . . . He believed the Neanderthal man to have been, accordingly, a being specifically distinct; and he would propose for him the designation of Homo Neanderthalensis." [21]

• Report of the Thirty-Third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Held at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in August and September 1863. (1864) [Appendix:Notices and Abstracts of Miscellaneous Communications to the Sections. Geology. pp.81-82] "The Neanderthal Skull, or reasons for believing it to belong to the Clydian Period and to be specifically distinct from Man. Prof. W. King. ". . . Thus the author is led to regard the Neanderthal skull as belonging to a creature cranially and psychically different from man; and he proposes to distinguish the species by the name of Homo Neanderthalensis, . . ." [22] Agricolae (talk) 00:42, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Interesting. ICZN Art. 8.3 seems to me to mean that the normally cited paper cannot be the basis of the name Homo neanderthalensis. Whether the previously published reports of what King said count as "publication" under the Code, I don't know, but I suspect not. At best, I think, King is the author of the species name, so the authority should perhaps be parenthesized (i.e. written as "(King, 1864)") to show that he did not accept the name in Homo. But all this needs an expert in interpreting the ICZN. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:20, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't know about this. The 1863 material gives me the distinct impression that they are going from some common hard-copy produced at the time of the lecture. If so, the subsequent repudiation in King, 1864, would not negate precedence. Agricolae (talk) 15:33, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

@Agricolae: agreed. But then the primary bibliographic reference for King's name should be this hard-copy. I've looked in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, but haven't found anything yet. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:50, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

I concur that his Q. J. Sci. article is not what should be used. I note that several recent scholarly sources (including one from 1986 in Nature, unfortunately most of these are paywalled for me) that appear to deal with this by treating the formal abstract, even though it is third-person, as King, W. (1864a) "On the Neanderthal Skull, or reasons for believing it to belong to the Clydian Period and to a species different from that represented by man," Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Notices and Abstracts, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1863:81-82 or something similar. Agricolae (talk) 16:35, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Expanding my search parameters, I turn up as many as a hundred papers or books that cite it this way. Here is a non-paywalled example [23]. I think this is the way to go. Agricolae (talk) 16:44, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

@Agricolae: now you've found the citation, I've found the original online here. If this were a botanical name, I would be pretty sure that it was not effectively published, because the abstract just says that King "proposes" to call the species Homo neanderthalensis (as you quoted above). But if so many sources use the abstract as the publication place, doubtless we should go along with them. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:59, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

I've added the reference for the abstract to the article. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:28, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

What I wonder is why Homo sapiens was removed on the info box where it says Binomial name. This race of human could well have been an unusual subspecies of our own species, or maybe not. Scientists still are not quite sure as they are just that close and that different from modern races.137.118.100.41 (talk) 01:26, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

There is no current consensus whether neanderthals are appropriately H. neanderthalensis or H. s. neanderthalensis. The problem is that Infobox templates are not very tolerant of such ambiguous situations. Agricolae (talk) 20:48, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

kya

One early paragraph ends in '100 kya' (meaning 100 thousand years ago). I find the use of that abbreviation (without either link nor prior introduction via something like 'nnn thousand years ago (kya)' problematic. I have for now added a link to the relevant Wiktionary entry but if there is a better solution, by all means.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sejtam (talk • contribs) 06:17, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Image showing comparison of Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis

I placed this image
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comparison_of_Neanderthal_and_Homo_sapiens_(version_1).png
on the Neanderthal article and it has been removed by two editors. The reasons given were

• Poorly photoshopped composite image
• Two random artistic impressions not very demonstrative

Whilst I agree it is not the best image in terms of quality, I have been unable to find any comparable image on Wikimedia. I therefore suggest that in the absence of anything else it is better than nothing because

• It has to be a random image as it is just an example of the two species not specific individuals
• It shows how their statures and facial features differ slightly

I would be very interested to hear other people's thoughts on this matter. Thank you BrightOrion (talk) 06:46, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

If it is to be informative as a comparison, it can't just been two different artists' representations, which say a lot more about the artists and their assumptions than any comparison between the (sub)species. Both seem to be somewhat dated, so they are also reflecting old assumptions. Further, how can anyone make useful facial comparisons when in making the image, the Neanderthal face (indeed, the entire Neanderthal) has been stretched left-right? Whether accidental or intentional, this renders the comparison moot. (the spear has also been manipulated/truncated) The image simply isn't up to the task, and does not improve the article. Agricolae (talk) 14:09, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Fair points, Agricolae, and thanks for the feedback! I'd like to address some of the points you mentioned.

-Surely it has to be an artist's representation since there are no living Neanderthals now. The fact that it is two different artists shouldn't necessarily render the comparison invalid.

-The Neanderthal was accidentally stretched left-right. That has now been corrected.

-The spear was not the main element of the image, rather the point was to compare the anatomies. To get all the spear in, the Neanderthal and human would have had to have been smaller and thus harder to see. That is why it was truncated. The spears could even be deleted if required.

-I'm not sure about the age of the models. The Neanderthal photo was taken in 2012 and the Homo sapiens one in 2011, both taken at museums (Neanderthal Museum in Mettmann, Germany for the Neanderthal and Museum of Prehistory of the Gorges du Verdon in France for the human). So I would question automatically assuming they are outdated.

-Lastly, thank you for taking to time and effort to enter into this discussion here. I still believe an image showing Neanderthal and Homo sapiens together would be of interest to many, and educational. If ever an acceptable image of that becomes available, I would politely suggest adding it to the Neanderthal article.BrightOrion (talk) 14:56, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Of course you can't have them pose for photographs, but there are still problems with using artistic representations. Taking an extreme example, if you compare a picture of a woman by Dali with Picasso's picture of a man it tells you next to nothing about the actual differences and similarities between men and women. Given how views of hominins have changed over time, the comparison may tell you the 2010 view of one with the 1990 view of the other, and that is apples and oranges. Indeed, were you to align the archaic H.s.s. you used before with the archaic H.s.s. in your latest iteration, they would appear more different from each other than the H.s.s. vs. H.s.n. in the current image. The lack of consensus on how to represent either of these populations means you can make them look as similar or as different as you want, all by picking the work of a different artist/time. That makes any such comparison highly misleading, even if unintentionally so. Agricolae (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

This is not a timeline

Can we please not turn this article into a timeline of publications? I can't think of a single instance when the month of publication is the least bit relevant, and in most cases, the year isn't either (it is in the cited references if anybody cares) - it is the insight in the context of what else we know that is important. The end of the Anatomy section (and not just the end) is quickly turning into a list of research findings. Please take the time to incorporate the new findings into a coherent narrative rather than just adding each one in disjointed sequence to the bottom of the section. Agricolae (talk) 05:01, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Pigmentation

The pigment of Neanderthals is not something that can be well defined based on the evidence at hand, and any definitive conclusions are problematic - the more we say, the more we have to contextualize that it isn't as definitive as it seems. Likewise, though, Neanderthal pigmentation simply does not merit four paragraphs and half of the entire Anatomy section. What we need is a very simple way of expressing what is known, tempered with some indication of the uncertainty it entails, without a full exposition on pigmentation - and it needs to be based on sources, not personal opinion or expertise. Agricolae (talk) 19:26, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Revision of the trinomal name

Since the bar that shows hominid evolution includes Neanderthals as a subsection of Heidelberg man, should Neanderthals be classified as Homo heidelbergensis neanderthalensis?137.118.102.246 (talk) 01:10, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Not really. The better question is if Neanderthal is a subspecies of Homo sapiens, shouldn't it also be Homo sapiens heidelbergensis? Anyhow, nothing on Wikipedia is what 'should' be. All that matters is what has been published in reliable sources - find one that calls them this and we will have something to talk about. Agricolae (talk) 01:58, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Funny. They used to call them Homo sapiens heidelbergensis until several years ago.137.118.102.246 (talk) 18:40, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

This is a pendulum that swings back and forth regarding Neanderthal too. They are diseased humans so H.s. (swing) No, they are not diseased and are enough different to be a distinct species, so H.n. (swing) Although they did art and buried relatives, clearly human behavior, so really just H.s.n. (swing) Yet again, humans have no Neanderthal mtDNA, so they couldn't interbreed: H.n. (swing) But wait, there's more: genomic DNA shows they did interbreed, so H.s.n. (swing) But then again, they didn't interbreed very much and other clearly-distinct species also have introgressed DNA, so H.n.(ish). I am sure we haven't seen the last of it. I think it would take a special kind of hair splitting to say that Neanderthal are close enough to Heidelberg that they are the same species, but enough different from AMH to be different species - but a special kind of hair-splitting is exactly what taxonomists do. Agricolae (talk) 20:42, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Europe during Eemian "partly ice-free"?

In the section "Habitat and Range," the second map has the following caption:

Sites where "classic Neanderthal" fossils (70–40 ka) have been found. Ice sheets of the last glacial maximum are indicated (partly ice-free during the Eemian interglacial)"

I am not a specialist, but everything I have read indicates that the Eemian was a full interglacial period comparable to the present Holocene interglacial, but with somewhat higher temperatures than during the Holocene. The ice sheets depicted on the map were therefore completely gone (except for local high-altitude glaciers, though even those were probably smaller than today). Europe was thus not partly, but wholly ice-free during the Eemian. Even during most of the last glaciation, the extent of the ice sheets were much smaller than those depicted on the map, which shows their maximum extent (hence Last Glacial Maximum).

Moreover, since the map addresses the period 70-40 kya, the reference to the Eemian (at 130 kya) seems superfluous. I am therefore reformulating the caption for the map in question, to:

Sites where "classic Neanderthal" fossils (70–40 kya) have been found. Ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum (approx. 25-15 kya) are indicated. These are significantly larger than at 70-40 kya.

Filursiax (talk) 00:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Date of Altai Neanderthal

There is a conflict regarding the dating of the Altai Neanderthal from which the genome sequence was derived. In our Denisova Cave article we date the specimen to 50-30 kya and this is supported by the cited publication of the genome, but in this article we say it is 120 ky old, likewise derived from a cited source [24]. Is anyone aware of a redating or something else that might account for this conflict? Agricolae (talk) 17:13, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Khoisan divergence at 200 kya?

Close to the end of the section "Genetic Evidence" in this article, the following phrase occurs:

"It is estimated that they [the Eastern Neanderthals] split off shortly after the Khoisan divergence some 200 kya."

I find no explananation of "the Khoisan divergence" here, nor any reference, either to this "divergence" or to the 200 kya dating. When I look around elsewhere in this article, in the main article "Neanderthal Genetics" and in the article "Khoisan" (I have also briefly searched the net) I find no clear indication of what might be meant. One source of confusion (at least for the general reader) is that there seem to be at least two different "divergences" at stake: (1) of the wider group to which the Khoisan belong from... (from what?), and (2) of the Khoisan from this wider group. Which of these is meant by "the Khoisan divergence" in the present article is not clear - at least to me as a non-specialist.

Someone with adequate knowledge of the field should explain to the general reader what is meant here, and provide reputable sources.

Filursiax (talk) 13:57, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I have tried to edit the section for clarity. The split refers, not to that of the Eastern Neanderthals, but to the divergence of an early modern human (homo sapiens/AMH) population that left Africa (before and distinct from the later Out-of Africa wave that is ancestral to modern Eurasians) and contributed a small amount of genetic ancestry/introgressed into to the Eastern Neanderthal population (traces of this early and divergent homo sapiens population are also found on the order of about 2% in a few modern human populations such as Papuan New Guineans and Australian Aboriginals), before eventually going extinct. The genetic split/divergence/branching off of this AMH population (from other homo sapiens, and its migration from Africa) is dated to around 125 kya, a little after the genetic divergence/branching of the ancestors of the Khoisan (another early-diverging branch of homo sapiens from Africa, whose divergence is believed to date to around 200 kya) Skllagyook (talk) 17:39, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

And I trimmed it back a good bit. We don't want to go into too much detail on this AMH population in an article about Neanderthals. It just adds unnecessary confusion. Agricolae (talk) 18:00, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, and I definitely see what you mean. Your version is much better and more to the point. Skllagyook (talk) 22:07, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Regarding Neanderthal Classification

@99.90.196.227: Hello. I reverted your last edit because it seemed a bit misleading. Although Neanderthals were at one time classified as a subspecies of Homo sapiens (under a broader definition of Homo sapiens than is now commonly used and understood), they are now considered a distinct branch. Your previous edit described them as possibly a subspecies of Homo sapiens and it linked to Wikipedia's Homo sapiens page on "modern humans"/"anatomically modern humans"/Homo sapiens (previously/sometimes also known as "Homo sapiens sapiens). Thus this was somewhat misleading, as Neanderthals are not a branch or subspecies within modern humans (the previous edit seemed to indicate that they were) but rather belong to a distinct lineage from extant (modern) humans within the genus homo (with a common ancestry possibly from a very early form of homo heidelbergensis/African heidelbergensis-like hominin, a late form of erectus, something similar to homo antecessor, or some other similar hominin). Skllagyook (talk) 12:57, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

subspecies of what ?

This should not be confusing. If we see the second name of taxon Homo sapiens neanderthalensis isn't it clear just by definition/convention what two first words in name mean species to which belong subspecies the third word?

good

Neanderthals (/niˈændərtɑːl, neɪ-, -θɔːl/;[4] German: [neˈ(ʔ)andɐtaːl];[5][6] Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis)[7] are an extinct species of archaic humans in the genus Homo or subspecies of Homo sapiens, who lived within Eurasia...

wrong

Neanderthals (/niˈændərtɑːl, neɪ-, -θɔːl/;[4] German: [neˈ(ʔ)andɐtaːl];[5][6] Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis)[7] are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans(cilcular bug link to itself) in the genus Homo, who lived within Eurasia from...

Please don't be confusing ending 's' in subspecies mean here a singular noun. 99.90.196.227 (talk) 14:30, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

@99.90.196.227: Whether they are a subspecies of "Homo sapiens" depends on how homo sapiens is defined (only if Homo sapiens is defined more broadly than it typically is). Conventionally/typically Homo sapiens is used to mean "anatomically modern humans" (The species to which current humans belong) which is distinct (as a species or subspecies) from Neanderthals. It is certain that Neanderthals are a species or subspecies of Homo (and the links to "homo" and "archaic humans" seem to work fine), but it is debated where exactly they fit otherwise in terms of nomenclature. And though the term "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis" has been used (and still sometime is as an alternate name), "Homo neanderthalensis" is the scientific term more commonly used currently (with the first word being the genus and the second word being the species or subspecies). Thus Neanderthals should not be described as a subgroup of Homo sapiens in the lede especially not with a link to the Homo sapiens page that specifically concerns the modern human lineage. Skllagyook (talk) 15:50, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

There are two competing sets of taxonomic designations. Either Neanderthals are H. neanderthalensis, a different species, and anatomically modern humans (AMH) are H. sapiens, or Neanderthals are H.s.neanderthalensis and AMH are H.s.sapiens, with the species H.sapiens being a species that encompasses AMH, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and perhaps others previously assigned species designation. So yes, if Neanderthal is a subspecies, they are a subspecies of H.sapiens, but care must be taken to be clear that this H.sapiens is not synonymous with H.sapiens used to indicate AMH. However, this is all too complex and confusing to be treated concisely in a lede, so the current version sort of skirts the issue by not saying of what it might be a subspecies. This intentional ambiguity in the lede is then explained in the penultimate paragraph of the 'Name and classification' section of the article. Agricolae (talk) 16:13, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

'This intentional ambiguity in the lede' < are you willing intentionally continue confuse audience? this is example of this confusion > "with the first word being the genus and the second word being the species or subspecies " < . If second world would be subspecies which word would indicate species ? (it then who use 'Sapiens neanderthalensis' ?) Neanderthal#Name_and_classification do not explain this intentional circular error . wp:mos Avoid ambiguity . 99.90.196.227 (talk) 20:16, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are saying here. The article contains no such text about first words and second words. Likewise, the MOS is referring to ambiguity within the language of the text, but the text that is there is not ambiguous: they were a species or a subspecies depending on whom you ask, they were a type of archaic human, they were members of the genus Homo. Where is the confusion in these three facts? It just doesn't answer the specific question you want it to, in the lede, saving that for the body because the inherent complexity of the explanation would be at odds with the concise nature of a lede. Agricolae (talk) 20:34, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

look up^ quoted Skllagyook (2mimutes above U). It show how misleading the lede is. Good is to fix it in place by moving to proper context one word. Not good would be writing explanation to 'intentionally' ~misleading header. Did you take part in designing 'This intentional ambiguity in the lede'? If i can help more ask me plz. 99.90.196.227 (talk) 23:08, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

I still don't know what you are talking about. The lede is neither inaccurate nor misleading, it just doesn't say everything you want it to, for reasons that have already been explained. Agricolae (talk) 00:49, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

wp nor

Would be referencing taxonomic species subspecies relation and applaing to this specific case wold or woldnt be baned as too logical reaspning or even original resrch? expecting as obvious that 'subspecies belong to species' and do not jump over not to heap-chrono-genus ...knowing we have thousand ref.s to Homo sapiens nerdetalensis but much less stating much more obvious , so obvious that rare, that classified as "Homo sapiens subspecies" "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis subspecies" belong to "Homo sapiens species". Nerveless will be flowing enough ?

[25] Neanderthal and Denisovan hominids, generally reported as subspecies of H. sapiens.

[26] Bejing man was able to realize and use stone tools. It was the first recognition that a fossil man not referred to Homo sapiens or his subspecies Homo sapiens neanderthalensis was able to develop and use tools

[27] subspecies of Homo sapiens and therefore it is also called Homo sapiens neanderthalensis

[28]it seems likely that Homo heidelbergensis then evolved into Homo sapiens neanderthalensis between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago … Fragments of another subspecies of Homo sapiens, the Denisovans, dating back 40,000 year

[29] subspecies of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis)

[30] the relatively complete skeletal remains and elements are robust and typical of the Homo sapiens neanderthalensis subspecies of Homo sapiens

[31] Neanderthal man was a subspecies of Homo sapiens, named Homo sapiens neanderthalensis

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10441-017-9306-7 here is also ample evidence suggesting that the use of fire was adopted from the Neanderthal subspecies Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, which was particularly adapted to the colder climates of the Eurasian continent (Roebroeks aand Villa 2011

[32] Neanderthals to be a subspecies of H.sapiens (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) and not an independent species—particularly in view of the rock engravings discovered in 2012 in Gibraltar, which appear to demonstrate that Neanderthals were more …

https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=6338566 Finally, the Neandertals belong to an extinct subspecies of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), sharing genome regions with modern man (Homo sapiens sapiens), as demonstrated by ancient DNA (aDNA) sequencing (Dorado et al, 2008, 2013)

https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=4703685 In other words, we have interbreed, generating fertile offsprings, and therefore all three are subspecies of the same sapiens species. The correct scientific name being, therefore, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens denisova and Homo sapiens sapiens

[33] closely related to modern humans, hence Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. According to the latter interpretation, modern humans are recognised as another subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens

[doi:10.20944/preprints201905.0038.v1] Number of prehistorical humans who are at present regarded as belonging to different species belong in fact to one ... These interbreedings between Homo sapiens and archaic humans (Neandertals, Denisovans, archaic Africans) .. require the existence of descendants who were capable of reproduction and parnts who belonged to the same species. This s hardly possible if all of these prehistorical humans belonged to different species ... Therefore I suggest that most of the known prehistorical humans in fact belonged to the same species. Homo sapiens sapiens Homo sapiens neanderthalensis ... Homo sapiens denisovansis ... Most prehistorical humans should be regarded as belonging to the same species as modern humans.

[34] Rather, they were seen as the outcome of a deeply rooted process of anagenetic evolution, as reflected in the then-widespread use of subspecies designations (eg, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) for fossils assigned to Leroi-Gourhan's Paleanthropian stage

TaxonKit: a cross-platform and efficient NCBI taxonomy toolkit W Shen, J Xiong - BioRxiv, 2019 - biorxiv.org … http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/513523 doi: bioRxiv preprint first posted online Jan. 8, 2019; Page 2. 9606 [species] Homo sapiens 63221 [subspecies] Homo sapiens neanderthalensis 741158 [subspecies] Homo sapiens subsp. 'Denisova' 1425170 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.90.196.227 (talk) 05:38, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

I can't for the life of me figure out what this is all meant to convey. Agricolae (talk) 06:12, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

It is ironic that a user has been complaining on the syntax for days, but they can't convey it in a coherent way. Is it about extinction, interbreeding, taxonomy, or genomics? His performance here and in the Denisovan article got me exhausted, and I've not even taken part. Rowan Forest (talk) 14:19, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

You do not have to understand it all. Just count the citations. Please check if above refs are wp:rs . Eventually discover lie if quoted here text was doctored. (it was c/p)

the dispute here is about wording:

A) subspecies of species

versus

B) subspecies of genus

given above RS support A. (what is beside obvious but apparently not for all) 99.90.196.227 (talk) 12:06, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

There is no formal designation as species nor subspecies. It varies depending on who wrote the paper and what he is alleging. It is not our job in Wikipedia to decide and make the final call for scientists to follow. Using the word "group" has been neutral in Wikipedia. Rowan Forest (talk) 14:42, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

@99.90.196.227: As explained, there are some experts that classify Neanderthals as a subspecies of Homo sapiens (depending on how "Homo sapiens" and "species" is defined, about which there is some disagreement), and this is explained in the "Name and Classification section of the article. But, as also explained, this is too complex to be summarized in the lede. The lede states that which is known and not disputed (that Neanderthals are a species or subspecies of archaic humans in the genus Homo) and the article elaborates later in the "Name and Classification" section.

Also, you wrote: "here is also ample evidence suggesting that the use of fire was adopted from the Neanderthal subspecies Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, which was particularly adapted to the colder climates of the Eurasian continent (Roebroeks aand Villa 2011)"

That is not the case. It is a single study that suggests that Neanderthals were the first hominids in Europe to regularly control or make fire (which is disputed). But it does not argue that Neanderthals taught fire-use to Homo S. sapiens (AMH) nor does it argue that H. S. sapiens did not habitually use fire in Africa before migrating to Eurasia - they did use it, which the study acknowledges. It rather proposes that Neanderthals and H. S. sapiens both began to create and regularly use fire independently/separately and in/at different times and places (one in Europe and the other in Africa), but that earlier hominids in Africa (such as H. erectus, who lived significantly before the evolution of both H. S. sapiens and Neanderthals) did not yet habitually use fire. However this (Roebroeks' and Villa's view that the ancestors of Neanderthals did yet not habitually use fire before/when they entered Europe) may be a minority view, and there is disagreement on when habitual fire use (and fire making) began, with other archaeologists, such as Wrangham, arguing that it began earlier, before the divergence of Neanderthals and that it was likely practiced by H. heidelbergensis and the common ancestors of H. sapiens (AMH) and Neanderthals/Denisovans, and possibly even earlier. And anyway, the question of fire use is not really relevant to Neanderthal classification. Skllagyook (talk) 14:50, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I looked at the first five references in 99.90.196.227's list. The simply states, without any kind of reference or supporting discussion that they are 'generally referred to as subspecies'. The third calls them Homo neanderthalensis repeatedly (seven times), and only in a note on one table does it say, 'oh, by the way, some scientists refer to H. neanderthalensis as a subspecies H. sapiens neanderthalensis.' The second and fourth are publications about religion, and the fifth about literature. Thus when I "count the references" as 99.90.196.227 suggests I see only two that are in a relevant field, and they fall one each, with neither of them actually discussing the question. This has every appearance of an attempt to just cherry-pick instances where the subspecies name appears, without regard to what the paper is about or what it says. I am not going to go through the rest of the list as the pattern is already clear.

99.90.196.227 should also note that while they must be either a 'subspecies of species' or a 'species of genus', the lede chooses to say neither - it says 'species or subspecies in [not of] genus' - they fall within Homo whatever taxonomic level is assigned to them, just as a przewalski is within 'Equus', whether it is afforded its own species or not. Agricolae (talk) 16:08, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Are you confused what is my edit or trying to exhaust audience?

Plese show more wp:rs saing Homo sapiens neanderthalensis is subspecies of genus Homo. I already found one citation in google scholar supporting your preferred interpretation: "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis is a subspecies of the genus homo that inhabited the European continent from approximately 400-25 kya. Despite".... Do your homework show more. But few bare mention is week case.

The strong case against my edit will be presentation of scientific community agreement to remove (spelled as) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis from Homo sapiens taxon. You looking for stuff not under consideration, you trying to change the subject (or you are really confused:). By the way u invoke (anti-semantically "the lede chooses to say") consensus of wikicommunity. Knowing perhaps that exact wording "subspecies of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis)" was present at lest from 2011 (and in variant linking to Human/s from min 2008) --- till abruptly removed 24 April 2018 without any debate or sourced edit. Please show more sources or give up derailing sourced proper OBVIOUS!! edit. 99.90.196.227 (talk) 03:19, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

re: "subspecies in genus Homo" (which i didnt notice:) is even more akward. GS list only 40 vesus hundreds of but no one contain Hsn, Despite my search failure i encourage you to bing here your wp:rs.99.90.196.227 (talk) 04:37, 22 September 2019 (UTC) LOL

I also added some boldface above for visulsaization on terms unsder consideration so there will be no need to vert inside. Is any of above, continius qoutes, fabricated? I can bring hundred which contextualy support main point. But do not expect amy scientist to wrote what even for studens should be very obvious: [35] [36]99.90.196.227 (talk) 05:06, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Not confused, the reason your edit was problematic has been explained. As to exhausting the audience, you have tried to make the same edit to this page five times over the past week, and have been reverted by three different editors (only once by me). You have failed to achieve consensus for your edit, and you have clearly failed to grasp why this is the case, instead repeatedly here making arguments of dubious coherence that seem to entirely miss the point. If you are feeling exhausted, you are not alone. Agricolae (talk) 10:00, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

What about golden WP:RS? Do you (plural) have any sources to backup this antisemantic fallacy by akwardly sly wording ? 99.90.196.227 (talk) 14:57, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Because no sorces was shown:

lets try if exist any slight reason to oppose

i did removed the anti semantic stufing of subspecies to genus. Wp:bluesky is (is it?) that species blongs to genus, however it appear wp:thunderskay is that 'subspecies' belong to 'species'. There is intuitive argument, may be bring logical argument eg based on set theory but i invoke most clear argument.

semantic; As a word subspecies resemble the word species with sub addled as prefix. Thus

1            sub . species = subspecies 

where '.' is concatenation argument. For testin the result in specific language eg python one can try

2 >>> 'sub' + 'species'
  subspecies

this can be compared to subgoup and group

3 sub . group = subgroup

so if whoeverbody conceptualize meaning of 'subgroup' but not yet 'subspecies' we refer [1:3] for consideration. (if any fault [1-3] please let me know by clinking on ip below.)

so the slightly modified not anti-semantic not anti-logic not taxon-jumping .. etc version f lede is this wording:

that the version

Neanderthals (/niˈændərtɑːl, neɪ-, -θɔːl/;[4] German: [neˈ(ʔ)andɐtaːl];[5][6] Homo neanderthalensis are an extinct species of archaic humans in the genus Homo or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis[7] subspecies of Homo sapiens , who lived within Eurasia from circa 400,000 until 40,000 years ago.[8][9][10][11]

---

if anybody is aginst please express all or at least one concern. for comparison the old and faulty version 99.90.196.227 (talk) 07:20, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

This has all been explained, multiple times. Agricolae (talk) 07:55, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Precisely. There is nothing wrong with the wording that is there now "Neanderthals ... are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans in the genus Homo". I will try once more. Neanderthals are regarded either as an extinct species, H. neanderthalensis or as an extinct subspecies H. sapiens neanderthalensis, as the sources clearly say. Whether a species or a subspecies, the taxon is in the genus Homo.

The next step will be to ask for protection for this page to stop anonymous editing. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:07, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

That or AN/I - IP is doing the same on two other pages. Agricolae (talk) 08:22, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Resume of arguments in above:

• Because wikipedia do not have article [Homo sapiens sapiens]
• "care must be taken to be clear that this H.sapiens is not synonymous with H.sapiens"
• "Neanderthals should not be described as a subgroup of Homo sapiens" <no reason
• "this is all too complex and confusing to be treated concisely in a lede"
• " This intentional ambiguity"

there was mocking on presented sources (but just scrool U can see they prove) with no single single source presented to backing wording "subspecies in genus Homo" in relation to Homo sapiens neaderthalensis . 99.90.196.227 (talk) 09:24, 26 September 2019 (UTC) there was also exemplary sraw and threat of force.

Homo sapiens neanderthalensis subspecies of Homo sapiens

Do somebody doubt that taxon (if and only if) named "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis" is classified as subspecies of "Homo sapiens"? This request regrading only "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis" (written as verbatim string). (not if in sources they wrote as species of genus!!! eg Homo neanderthalensis, or any other "Homo" (if any) without word "sapiens" immediately following it

see also Talk:Denisovan#Homo_sapiens_denisova_subspecies_of_Homo_sapiens 99.90.196.227 (talk) 09:36, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Of course no-one doubts that any species named X y z is a subspecies of the species X y. It also necessarily in the genus X (as the article says). It's the way that trinominals work. Please stop wasting everyone's time and get on with something useful. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:40, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

So it is OK to say it in lede ? 99.90.196.227 (talk) 09:53, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Say what? The opening sentence is, as everyone has repeatedly pointed out, correct. Nothing else needs to be said there; brevity is important in the opening sentences which are only meant to summarize. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:13, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

So we cant say obvious and must be ambiguous because of biopolitics ? 99.90.196.227 (talk) 10:43, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Also on brevity my not ambiguous version is shorter.

Your version is shorter because it leaves out the necessary explanation that H. sapiens as you are using it means something different than H. sapiens as it is typically understood. Without this clarification it introduces confusion, but with the explanation it is too convoluted and too fine-detailed for a good lede. Agricolae (talk) 11:05, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I can adres this modus as BADWiNTDTD. Let stay on subject are you agree with Peter coxhead "Of course no-one doubts" ? 99.90.196.227 (talk) 11:41, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Sigh... 99.90.196.227: we are just going round in circles. I'll try one last time. The opening sentence is correct as it is, and avoids the need to explain the change in the circumscription of H. sapiens between the two cases: Neanderthals being treated as separate species, and Neanderthals being treated as a subspecies of H. sapiens. In both cases, the genus Homo has the same circumscription. So it's both fully correct, and simpler, to say that the species and subspecies are both within Homo. No more from me. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:04, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

But houpfuly yet nobody in science who wrote "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis" use wikipedia as source and use anti-semantic "subspecies of genus". Agricolae &a circu-scripitst didn't show sources == so WP:OR. (even if crowdOR). Why using straw man argument widening clear (see up) subject under consideration? Such crowdored argumentation would be even BADWiNTDED. 99.90.196.227 (talk) 16:37, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Often, a prolonged conflict on content and sources is beneficial to the quality of the article. However, I think this issue ran its course days ago, and is becoming a disruption, now with accusations of indulging on "biopolitics". We are fast approaching some kind of administrative intervention, such as partial page(s) protection or restrictions on the IP editor. Rowan Forest (talk) 14:54, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Accusations or sourcing? In biopolitics related pap. lay perhaps origin of this derailinig logic 'subspecies in genus' . https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/AN.253 source. just clik do you see:On how human genetic is biopolitical. Are you threatening of force using becaus truth not you amusing? 99.90.196.227 (talk) 16:37, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

It is not about your WP:Truth, but the published scientific consensus. And yes, consider it as a friendly warning. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 18:31, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

In addition to scientific consensus, consensus on Wikipedia should also be taken into account. Thus far 6 different editors have opposed the changes either on Talk or by reverting, while none have come forward in support. There is a point in time when an editor just needs to recognize that they hold a position not shared by other editors with an interest in the page, and that their arguments have been unpersuasive and are likely to continue to be unpersuasive in altering that consensus among editors. That is when they need to simply accept that it is not going to turn out the way they want, and quit wasting everyone's time. We have reached that point in this discussion (indeed, some time ago). Agricolae (talk) 18:56, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Accretion model of Neanderthal origins

There's not much technical info and the subject is rather straightforward, so there's no real reason for a split between these 2 articles   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:42, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Merge - though in text and not table format. Agricolae (talk) 01:28, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment - "It [Accretion hypothesis] suggests that those traits characteristically Neanderthal appeared gradually (accreted) over hundreds of thousands of years, rather than abruptly." Unless creationism is being considered, I see no point in stating the redundancy of this model that Neanrderthals evolved into their final appearance. Rowan Forest (talk) 13:42, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Merge - It proposes four distinct phases of Neanderthal development. Rowan Forest (talk) 03:28, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

File:64381-Neanderthalgo gizakiaren zabalkundea.svg

Does anyone know where this image came from? It lists the source as this but the image isn't on that website   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:16, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

One possible reason for their disappearance that is not included is mixed breading with Homo Sapiens. Should be included and cited — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.32.59.180 (talk) 17:46, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

It is about context and notability, as interbreeding can only account for a certain degree of Neanderthal population decrease. An unrealistic hypothesis in the minority, does not have to be mentioned in the introduction of this article, but it is at: Neanderthal extinction#Interbreeding. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 18:16, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

phylogenetic tree

The Classification section begins with a tree purportedly based on DNA analysis, yet it includes the Karst Cave specimen from which was only analysed by ancient protein analysis, whatever DNA it contained being too degraded for analysis. It is also a little misleading because later Denisova Neanderthals (or at least the one we know about) were closely akin to the Vindija specimen, it was only the early Denosova Neanderthal that was more distant. Agricolae (talk) 00:03, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

OK, now replaced with a mtDNA plot, but while technically accurate, this is deceptive in that it is not thought to be the true phylogeny with regard to the relationship among the subspecies. I am removing the misleading portion. I also question whether this isn't too detailed for a Wikipedia article. Agricolae (talk) 17:23, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Regarding my last point, the basic phylogenetic tree that was there before better suits the needs of a reader. It just needed to be accurate. I am restoring it. Agricolae (talk) 17:51, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Sterile hybrid offspring

There are 2 entries stating that interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals likely produced sterile offspring if at all. If this was the case, there would be no Neanderthal genes in the present human population, so this has to be corrected of clarified. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 21:46, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I think you missed the point where it says "modern". The way I read that is that 'modern' means 20-21st century man. That so, there is a difference between modern and the Cro-Magnon stock of 50-25,000 years ago, even when it is called "modern man". No species' evolution stops because a scientist way down the timeline pins a species name on it. I'm just doubtful about the evidence for it. SkoreKeep (talk) 23:49, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

No. In the context of human evolution, "anatomically modern humans" are at least 200,000 years old. The term does not refer to cultural modernity. Rowan Forest (talk) 23:57, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

The offspring of male humans with female Neanderthals were likely rare, absent, or sterile as there is no Neanderthal-derived mitochondrial DNA (which is passed down from mother to child) in modern humans. However, hybrid offsprings of male Neanderthals with female humans did occur, given there is Neanderthal DNA in modern humans. Male hybrids likely had reduced fertility because male hybrids between any 2 species have a tendency to be less fertile. How would you consider rephrasing to make it clearer?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:02, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

If the female product of such an interbreeding happened to have three sons before being killed by a cave bear, there would be no mitochondrial DNA even though the women was fully fertile. If you drop 10 couples on an island and come back 500 years later, there is a decent chance everyone there will represent a small proportion of the original 10 mt lineages, not because only some of the founders were fertile, but because of the vicissitudes of mono-gender lineages over time. If this is to be presented, heavy weight needs to be given to the fact that the whole thing is just speculation. Agricolae (talk) 00:35, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Well they're extinct so everything is presented as speculation, as is standard for extinct species articles. If you find an expert on the subject who voices the same concern over current hypotheses, feel free to put it in   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:13, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Everything is speculation, but everything isn't one person's speculation. If others have criticized it, then yes, that can be added, but if they ignore it, that doesn't mean it should be presented as the unchallenged 'current hypothesis' of the field. Only if others support it is that the case. If it is just one person's guess, it shouldn't be represented as "likely", and even "possible" needs to be used carefully. We shouldn't be so recentist, presenting the interpretation of the most recent author to have published as the accepted consensus. Agricolae (talk) 00:42, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

We can't just stick to information for 2 decades ago either, and this isn't the opinion of just 1 author, there're multiple publications repeating the same thing, and each publication has multiple authors, it's not the fringe hypothesis you're making it out to be, and it has been criticized too, which is what the portion on non-consensual intercourse–the part you're also trying to delete–adds   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  04:49, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, we can stick to decade old consensus if that is the latest information for which there is scholarly consensus. This isn't Science News Daily. Anyhow, I am not suggesting that the fertility stuff be purged, just that it be presented as the speculation that it is. (The rape material is a different story.) Agricolae (talk) 17:11, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

The purpose of "it has been suggested that..." is to convey that what's about to be said is not 100% guaranteed how it went down. The part about rape is to give alternate views   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  18:09, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Giving such attention to the mental meanderings of someone poaching outside their field, published in a publication of dubious value, is WP:UNDUE.Agricolae (talk) 12:03, 4 November 2019 (UTC)