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Interbreeding - Non-consensual Hypothesis

I'm suggesting the removal of this line under the 'Interbreeding With Modern Humans' section, "It is possible that, since Neanderthals were generally stronger than humans, this admixture is the product of nonconsensual intercourse" - This statement lacks any relevance within the general discussion of their genealogy with modern humans and, if anywhere, belongs within the culture section, although seeing as there is nothing supporting the hypothesis that they practiced mass non-consensual intercourse, and the source cited with it has no reference to non-consensual intercourse being a common form of intercourse among Neanderthals, it should be removed altogether until further reason/proof is given.173.59.11.121 (talk) 03:10, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Totally agree. I have removed it. HiLo48 (talk) 03:49, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
Concur. Agricolae (talk) 04:06, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
Seemingly being unaware of this discussion, User @Dunkleosteus77: reverted my removal with a somewhat rude Edit summary. I had searched the source for the obviously controversial and key words "nonconsensusal" and "intercourse". Neither is there. It would seem some serious re-interpretation of the source is happening here in order to support a particular POV. HiLo48 (talk) 23:49, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
It says on the 10th page right before right before the Conclusions section "...as Neanderthals did not possess mental synthesis, negotiations with them were impossible. As a consequence, the inter-species sex was probably non-consensual: larger and stronger Neanderthal males taking advantage of weaker and smaller human females, while weaker human males were probably not able or not willing to take on bigger and stronger Neanderthal females."   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:08, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
(e/c) Even if there is something in the paper about this: 1) Research Ideas and Outcomes isn't exactly a journal known for presenting expert papers in paleoanthropology. A look at the editorial board leaves me unimpressed. Expertise in History of Science, international scientific collaboration, medical imaging, someone from IBM, someone associated with a Digital Civil Society lab, a publisher, a librarian and someone using a gmail address (that should be disqualifying). We should be very careful citing something from this type of 'general thought' journal, and that applies not only to this instance, but to the other cases where this source is cited. 2) a simple 'It is possible . . .' doesn't adequately represent the degree to which this amounts to one person's off-the-cuff speculation that 'Neanderthals were strong, so they may have been rapists'. Agricolae (talk) 00:31, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
The concept of non-consensual sex has changed dramatically over the aeons. What's being used here is very much a 21st century version, quite inappropriate when discussing, no, speculating about what happened tens of thousands of years ago. Less than a century ago it was considered normal in western society for wives to provide sex for their husbands whether they felt like it at the time or not. They were seen to have consented, and believed they had "consented" when they said "I do" at their wedding. So it wasn't non-consensual, even though they didn't want it. Now, some might argue with what I have just written. That doesn't matter. All I'm showing is the difference in the concept of consensual sex in less than a hundred years. How such things were seen 40,000 years ago can never be known. We should keep such language and such speculation out of the article. It adds nothing. Men have raped women in every society. Let's not claim that we know t←hat Neanderthals did it any more than anyone else. HiLo48 (talk) 01:01, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Oh, and you don't re-add controversial content you have been asked to discuss, until consensus has been achieved. HiLo48 (talk) 01:04, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Do you have a source that voices these concerns, or are they just your own opinions? We present all hypotheses the experts put forward unless expert consensus (not Wikipedia editor consensus) has deemed such as largely irrelevant. The author has the qualifications to say what they've said and the merit to be taken seriously. You can't just say "But I disagree" and then pretend it doesn't exist. And in case you didn't realize, Neanderthals are extinct, everything said about them (and I do mean everything) is speculation. Even introgression is speculation or diet or technology or language or body dimensions or basic anatomy, you name it. That's why words like it's likely, possibly, may have, could have, etc. are strewn throughout the entire article. Should we delete the entire article on the basis it's speculation?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  04:43, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Your behaviour and attitude here makes this discussion pointless. Goodbye. HiLo48 (talk) 05:43, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
It's not my fault you read my words in an angry tone. If I were speaking to you I would be monotonous because I'm a very monotonous person   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:02, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
@Dunkleosteus77: information, especially information that is challenged, needs to be based on a reliable secondary source. The source used to make the non-consensual claim does not meet the requirements of WP:RS. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:25, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
See below, it is in fact written by a reliable author. -Dunkleosteus77
Source: "[...] as Neanderthals did not possess mental synthesis, negotiations with them were impossible. As a consequence, the inter-species sex was probably non-consensual […]"
We don't know the most basics of Neanderthal behavior, never mind their thoughts, desires and intentions. I agree with the deletion, especially if the source is deemed non-reliable. Rowan Forest (talk) 14:43, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
It's written by Andrey Vyshedskiy, he specializes in the evolution of language and imagination, and wrote On the Origin of the Human Mind, he has every right to say that. He teaches at Boston University. He's not a blogger, he's not a fringe scientist, he's a credible source with things to say on this subject, and he has a right to be taken seriously. If you want, we can say "In the opinion of"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:02, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
But he doesn't have a right to have his opinions included in an encyclopedia, unless they are taken up and supported in a secondary source. We don't include every opinion expressed by an academic who's written a book. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:50, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
It's not only presenting his views, it's also presenting a dissenting voice/alternate opinion on "progeny of Neanderthal women who mated with modern human men were also either rare, absent, or sterile". It's not illegal to include responses to opinions   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:55, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
No, it is not illegal, but this is not how to write an encyclopedia, just including every random speculation you can find as if this collectively produces a balanced image of the current scholarly consensus. Agricolae (talk) 17:08, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
It's not balanced to give the view of one side of the discussion, and there's no good reason to exclude it. You said earlier that "If others have criticized [a hypothesis/idea], then yes, that can be added," so the idea here is "the progeny of Neanderthal women who mated with modern human men were also either rare, absent, or sterile" and the criticism to this is put forward by Mr. Vyshedskiy. Here, we have a fact–"the absence of Neanderthal-derived mtDNA...in modern human populations"–so we present an explanation (the former quote), but we must also present (if there is one) a counter-explanation provided it is proposed by someone with merit (which is the case here). Also, responding to waiting for secondary sources, here's one that gives a paragraph on "a non-consensual sex hypothesis" written by 4 authors who aren't Mr. Vyshedskiy, and we can add their criticism too as "[credentials] Andrey Vyshedskiy says [what he says], however [what these guys say]"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  18:20, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
This seems to imply that the fact that a group of other authors dismissed this line of speculation as (and I quote) "... quite unreasonable ..." somehow makes it more worthy of being reported here. That seems counterintuitive. Agricolae (talk) 20:48, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
For such drastic statement in Wikipedia, the question is if this reflects the scientific consensus. If not, then deletion is the answer. Rowan Forest (talk) 22:29, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
It's not, it's a criticism of consensus. If this were a blog poster or someone without the relevant qualifications, normally I would throw this out the window, but considering it was written by somebody whose life's work revolves around the evolution of the human mind, and it shook enough heads to be thrown down by somebody else in their publication, it deserves to be recognized here, even though a discussion would reflect how it's unlikely to be the case. It's about the same logic as including a discussion on the Ural Mountain refuge hypothesis and why it's not academic consensus   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:27, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
"...there's no good reason to exclude it." I gave reasons. I reckon they're good. Only you, in a very rude manner, dismissed them. No-one else dismissed my reasons. You also, against policy, restored disputed content while consensus for your view clearly doesn't exist here. I wish you could step back and see what you are doing here. HiLo48 (talk) 02:33, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
For the record reverting it was an accident because there was an edit conflict and I couldn't tell what changed and assumed it was minor, I speak in a monotonous tone so my comments don't sound rude to me but if you read it in a yelling tone then yeah it's gonna sound rude, we don't only include information after 5+ publications have echoed it, and you don't seem to be batting an eyelash at any of those times   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Classification section

The last paragraph of this section appears to contain a non sequitur.

Neanderthals were more closely related to Denisovans than humans, however mtDNA analysis reveals humans and Neanderthals share a more recent common ancestor, which may be due to introgression between Denisovans and some unknown hominid.[99][100][101][102][103] Individuals within the same cave tended to share more DNA with each other than with other Neanderthals, except in Mezmaiskaya Cave in the Caucasus, which indicates that eventually Western European Neanderthals replaced Eastern European Neanderthals or vise versa.[103]

I see nothing in the fact either that Mezamaiskaya Cave shows wide diversity while other caves do not to suggest that one group of Neanderthals replaced another, nor does the hypothesis that Denisovans may have an introgressed mtDNA contribute to this conclusion. If anything points to replacement it is that the early Denisova specimens and introgression differ so much from other samples while the later hybrid genome is much closer (and this also suggests a direction, at least with regard to this cave). The Denisovan sentence here also ignores an alternative that has appeared in print several times, that Neanderthal mtDNA is closer to modern humans, not because Denisovans have an archaic human introgression, but because Neanderthals have an early-modern-human introgression. Agricolae (talk) 17:34, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

For your former point, that's what the source says. It's not our place to place our own opinions, just to report the opinions of the experts. You can read it for yourself and see if I misread it. As for your latter point, if that's what the sources say, go on and add it. I must've forgotten to or something   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  18:04, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
It is not our job to collect a bunch of opinions, but summarize the scientific consensus. Rowan Forest (talk) 22:31, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
And from what I can tell based on the number of opinions, that is the scientific consensus, whether it pleases any of us down here at Wikipedia, unless of course you find a bunch of dissenting opinions which indicate the scientific consensus is leaning in a different direction. Until then, it doesn't matter if you personally disagree with what an expert is saying. Instead of saying "it doesn't make sense to me because," establish that view is the consensus   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:19, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
One opinion is not "scientific consensus". Which other researchers published that admixture is the product of rape? The source you offered above states: "show that Neanderthals possessed high-level cognitive abilities […]" and: "[…] seems quite unreasonable to assume that all sexual encounters between the different Homo species were of the non-consensual variety." So it hardly supports the rape hypothesis, and definitely is NOT a scientific consensus. You are cherry-picking. The hypothesis was suggested by one researcher, it does not make it a "likely" fact as described in this article. Rowan Forest (talk) 14:34, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
If I described it as likely that was a mistake on my part, so how about you add some sources and text to the article instead of asking permission and complaining? If you want to say any of that and you're backed up by sources then I can't stop you because you'd be in the right. I haven't read enough on classification yet, I literally just started with that section, there's still a lot of sources out there I need to read. So with the amount I've read so far (which don't specialize in classification and aren't used as refs for the passage), that's what they're saying (that western neanderthals replaced eastern). If you're reading a lot of sources that specifically talk about classification and they go into a lot more detail, then by all means, don't complain that the article is garbage, fix it. Read the sources, then add what they're saying instead of waiting on me to fix everything   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:07, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I'll fix it. And it is not "complaining", but am avoiding and edit war and more of your reverts on this issue. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 17:48, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Don't get mad at me, I didn't even add that part, it was already in the article as "Analysis of the genomic DNA from three locations suggests that about 120 kya there were genetically distinct Neanderthal populations in Western Europe and Siberia. By 90 kya, the western population had spread east into Siberia." All I did was make it more clear what "genomic DNA" meant. It didn't seem like such a controversial topic, I don't know why you choose now to be all up in arms about it   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
My apologies. Perhaps it was your evil twin brother that hijack your account and opposed the fixing, and reverted the fixes. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 17:01, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
"For your former point, that's what the source says." Well, yes, but not really. It does say that Mezmaiskaya cave had different populations, and it does suggest replacement, but not because it is different while the Western Euro caves each have only one population. It is the way Mezmaiskaya is different that underlies the conclusion: that the late Mezmaiskaya samples are the same as the Western European cave samples while the early samples are divergent from the whole group (Western Euro plus late Mezmaiskaya) that suggests replacement, not simply the fact that this one cave has different genetic populations represented while each other cave is uniform. Agricolae (talk) 13:06, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Ooof ooof .the Neanderthal people were ones who were surprisingly intelligent. Many people may portray them as stupid cavemen with clubs, but they were actually far more than than. They learned about shelter, and knew where to build camps, and they also knew about medicinal plants. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:6372:7B00:D807:81CA:F466:6D56 (talk) 19:31, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Male and female vs men and women

I have to admit I feel rather strange talking about Neanderthals using terminology "male and female" instead of "men and women" in a non-anatomical discussion. It's a very subtle difference and I see why this could potentially be controversial, but I feel it more appropriate to follow the academic convention of using "male and female" only in anatomical discussions and using "men and women" elsewhere in this article as is done for H. sapiens   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  05:49, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

we only know things about them based on bones, and we surmise sex based on them. Male/female seems perfectly appropriate especially when discussing any nonhuman species. EvergreenFir (talk) 05:54, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Well many sources use conventions as "Neanderthal man" and "Neanderthal woman" already, for example, here instead of saying "We present a high-quality genome sequence of a Neanderthal female from Siberia" they say "...sequence of a Neanderthal woman from Siberia", and here uses them inconsistently with "women and children" but also "males, females, and juveniles"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  14:37, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
They were archaic humans, and there is no debate about that, so I don't feel strongly one way or another. But for Wikipedia purposes, it seems that male/female would be most objective and neutral. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 19:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Agricolae and Kahoutec: If we're gonna use the terminology "men" and "women", there's no logical reason to use it only for modern humans as even peer reviews who use such terminology use it for both, so either use "men and women" or "male and female" throughout the article, not "human men human women, Neanderthal male Neanderthal female"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  04:04, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
When talking about physiological measurements and genetics, it is routine to speak of male/female, whatever species (or subspecies) you are talking about. As long as it is not used to establish a false dichotomy between Neanderthal and AMH (and a quick look does not suggest such a pattern actually currently exists, there being references to both female Neanderthals and Neanderthal women, to AMH males and modern human men), there is no reason not to take full advantage of the variety found within the English language by using both sets of synonyms throughout, for both groups. Agricolae (talk) 04:31, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Kuru

@Dunkleosteus77:, about your revert[1]. Your edit doesn't match your edit summary. You wrote "Kuru is only reported in the Fore people of Papua New Guinea", as though you were changing the article so that it did not say the disease was kuru specifically. That is exactly what change my edit made before you reverted it. It currently says "transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (kuru)". What is accurate and relevant is "kuru-like", which is what I am editing it to say. ~ R.T.G 19:40, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

No because the statement is "In late-20th-century New Guinea...the population was decimated by transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (kuru)..." not "Neanderthals were afflicted by a kuru-like disease." That would be the second sentence, which starts out as "A similar [kuru-like] disease..."   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  23:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
@Dunkleosteus77:You are totally right! I barely even scanned it after having read it so much elsewhere, subconsciously assuming such a short note under extinction was that part... I'll try maybe tomorrow to do a more careful addition of a sentence. Sorry about that!! ~ R.T.G 23:47, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Etymology

@Espoo: Outside of lexico.com, I have never read a single English source that has used "Neandethaler." I will say right now, dictionary.com and merriam-webster.com don't count as authoritative sources. The passage you added below is repetitive and overdetailed. Repetition is bolded, over detail is italicized:

"The common name of the species in German is invariably Neandertaler (lit. "of the valley of Neander"), whereas Neandertal always refers to the valley. The local authorities and the Neanderthal Museum use the old-fashioned spelling Neanderthal for the Neander Valley in some rare situations meant for tourists, such as a large, colorful road sign[97] and the name of the museum (which can be interpreted as being in fact English since German spelling of compound nouns would require either "Neandert(h)almuseum" or "Neandert(h)al-Museum"), and the German rail authority never changed the spelling of the Neanderthal station, but they all use the modern spelling of the valley in official texts. The municipal authorities and the museum have however adopted the policy all names referring to the prehistoric humans have the "h", so they in fact use the spelling Neanderthaler for the species, which is not done outside of the town."

That's why I changed it to:

"The common name of the species in German is invariably Neandertaler (lit. "of the valley of Neander"), whereas Neandertal always refers to the valley. However, the old spelling in Neander Valley is still use in some situations meant for tourists, such as the local authorities, the Neanderthal Museum, and the Neanderthal station, but they all use the modern spelling in official texts. The municipal authorities and the museum have, however, adopted the spelling Neanderthaler for the species, which is not done outside of the town."

  User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:58, 31 January 2020 (UTC)


Merriamwebster.com is most definitely a reliable and authoritative source. It is based on the same dictionary's unabridged version and its entry for Neanderthaler is essentially identical. Since you don't seem to know much about good dictionaries and the scientific process they are based on, please look at Webster's Third New International Dictionary and http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/info/about-the-unabridged.html In addition, lexico.com would be enough proof that it is in use, and you don't seem to know how easy it is to find Neanderthaler in other reliable sources, for example using Google Books:


Almost all of that text is now in a note at the end, so its length is not a problem and it didn't have repetition or too much detail (except for the road sign and the proof that the museum's name is English, which i'll remove), whose attempted removal produced these logic, content, and grammar problems in the version you suggested: the museum's spelling usage is at least as important as that of the town and is independent and cannot be ignored here, the local authorities are not "a situation for tourists" ("the old spelling in Neander Valley is still use in some situations meant for tourists, such as the local authorities"), the museum does not use the old spelling for the valley, and others.
I've taken some of your suggestions to produce this version with no errors and the minimum of detail necessary:

The local municipal authorities use the old-fashioned spelling Neanderthal for the Neander Valley in a few rare situations meant for tourists, and the name of the Neanderthal Museum seems to (but is in fact English), and the German rail authority never changed the spelling of the Neanderthal station (Bahnhof Neanderthal), but they all use the modern spelling of the valley in official texts. The local municipal authorities and the museum have however adopted the old-fashioned spelling Neanderthaler for all names referring to the species, which is not done anywhere else in German-speaking areas.

--Espoo (talk) 10:29, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Don't really understand "the name of the Neanderthal Museum seems to (but is in fact English)" considering "Neanderthal Museum" is in German, and you don't really need to mention the German rail authority. The source doesn't say only the local authorities and the museum use the h when referring to the species, it says you should use the h when referring to the species (as in, it's simply recommending that you do so). So, it should be

"In Neander Valley, the old-fashioned spelling Neanderthal is still used by local municipal authorities in a few rare situations meant for tourists, as well as by the local Neanderthal Museum, and the Neanderthal station (Bahnhof Neanderthal)."

  User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  18:35, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

@Espoo:, the source doesn't say "Neanderthal Museum" is English, and not everything in German needs to be a compound word. Neanderthal Museum, Neanderthalmuseum and Neanderthalermuseum should all be acceptable. The source also doesn't say anything about the local authorities, nor of anyone switching to Neandertal in official documents. I don't know where you're pulling all this from, it's definitely not the website your citing   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:48, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Basically everything you said here is wrong, so it's good you only tried to implement some of these wrong ideas in your newest edit, which unfortunately consists almost entirely of either unnecessary or incorrect changes.
You're right that "not everything in German needs to be a compound word", but apparently you don't know what a compound noun is and don't know anything at all about German spelling. Even people who know very little about it know that all compound nouns have to be written together in one word. (BTW, As a member of the Germanic family of languages, English is unusual in that compounds are normally written in separate parts. This would be an error in other Germanic languages such as Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German and Dutch.) So you're completely naive and wrong in claiming "Neanderthal Museum, Neanderthalmuseum and Neanderthalermuseum should all be acceptable". And the second example shows you still haven't understood that Neandert(h)al in German always means the valley, never the species, and it's a museum of the species, not the valley.
Since you didn't implement any change based on your claims that "source also doesn't say anything about the local authorities, nor of anyone switching to Neandertal in official documents", that's perhaps a sign you realized these claims are nonsense, but in case you're planning more wrong edits based on them: The source is the local municipality, and the notes and their sources explain in enough detail that all spelling in all official texts and almost all private texts changed after 1901. --Espoo (talk) 13:46, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
When you say "the local municipal authorities" or "the local authorities" that means "the police", the source doesn't say anything about spelling in official documents, doesn't say anything about "Neanderthal Museum" is in English (even the German wiki uses "Neanderthal Museum"), so as far as I'm concerned, this is WP:SYNTH. Even if it wasn't synth, you're giving way too much detail, that note is enormous, all you need to do is list the very few exceptions   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:59, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  • @Espoo: Also "The original journal article has the obvious typo "theositic", which is often quoted despite being incomprehensible but is corrected in carefully edited books.[95]" This is obviously far, far too much detail. The only important thing is it's a typo, and this also reads as an insult to King and whoever used a direct quote from him. Why do you need to say "carefully edited book" are we also citing crappy books with no quality control and we're trying to distinguish the two. It's also 100% synth because the source you're citing doesn't make any of these claims of it being often quoted despite being incomprehensible. All it does it quote him with "incapable of moral and theistic conceptions" instead of "theositic". They don't even mention that he originally said "theositic" nor indicate a correction using brackets. We have to leave it as "King made a typo and said 'theositic'" (we're allowed to correct spelling mistakes, no reference required to say theositic=theistic) and you need to stop adding your own personal two cents   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
I was forced to add that much detail in both cases to prevent you and others like you from redoing edits such as your first reversal of the typo correction with the inane comment that that is what he wrote. Since what he wrote is obviously a typo and results in a word that doesn't exist but looks like a possible fancy word to people who don't know Greek and therefore produces an incomprehensible sentence for most readers and wastes their time if they try to look it up, your revert was completely uncalled for.
The situation is exactly the same with the name of the museum. All educated German speakers will agree that the museum's name is English and not German, and not only because the spelling with a compound noun in two parts is never ever done in any official text in German. It's a museum of Neanderthals not of the valley. I've explained several times that the German word for the species is always Neandertaler, never Neandertal, but you still don't seem to get it. And i assume you know enough about countries that don't have English as an official language to know that English is increasingly used in them in product names and now even museum names for marketing reasons.
What you say about municipal authorities being understood as police is nonsense. What would you call the town's civil servants and politicians?
You obviously don't know German so can't read the entire source and obviously don't know enough about this topic to not continually make incorrect claims (it is illegal for civil servants to not use the spelling of the latest spelling reform, not to mention that of 1901!), but "the source doesn't say anything about spelling in official documents" is a joke since the note already says "place names should refer to the Neander Valley ['Neandertal'] without an 'h'" and the source mentions the example of the highway sign for tourists with the old-fashioned spelling for marketing purposes.
I'll try to shorten the note, but even longer ones are not a problem since only readers interested in the details read them, and they are very much interested in an explanation of this extremely rare and weird situation. --Espoo (talk) 11:58, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
All you needed to do was leave a note saying that it's a typo and you're changing it from what the original source used; "which is often quoted despite being incomprehensible but is corrected in carefully edited books" is synth and an insult, and wholly unnecessary, and I will be deleting it. If someone says "I'd like to speak to the local authorities", they don't mean the mayor, they mean the police. If you mean those higher ups, you say "the city" (or as you like to say "the local municipality"). And your note is leaving us open to a bunch citation needed tags. The text already says everything the note does, except for the Neanderthal station, and I still think you're reading it wrong. "but they all use the modern spelling of the valley in official texts" according to your explanation, this is false, because this means they spell it "Neandertal Museum" in official texts. You only meant to say "The city maintains the h when referring to the species." In-text, we already specified that all of Germany drops the h, so we don't need to say it again in the note.  User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:52, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Recent edit

Dunkleosteus77 Your edit "Humans, in turn, may have been exposed to several Neanderthal viruses." looks wrong to me. "Neanderthal viruses" does not make sense, and as I read the source it is not what it is saying. It is rather saying that modern humans were exposed to viruses found in Europe, and that they acquired alleles which conferred protection by their interbreeding with Neanderthals.

The previous line (which was in the article before you made the recent edits) has similar problems. "Neanderthals were likely subject to several infectious diseases and parasites. Modern humans likely transmitted diseases to them; one possible candidate is the stomach bacteria Helicobacter pylori." The first sentence is nonsense and should be deleted. Neanderthals were certainly, not likely, subject to diseases. The source is saying that modern humans passed African diseases to Neanderthals which they were not adapted to, and may have played a role in their extinction. I am reluctant to alter this as I do not have access to the full article and do not know whether it is correct that Helicobacter pylori is an example. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:25, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

It says "If we consider pathogens AMH may have transmitted to Neanderthals, Helicobacter pylori is a candidate: estimated to have first infected humans in Africa 88‐116kya, carried out‐of‐Africa by AMH, and arriving in Europe after 52ky." Other one's saying that modern humans gained resistance to European pathogens (i.e., Neanderthal pathogens) via introgression ("the exchange of adaptive alleles"). So when it says "Human genome evolution after Neanderthal interbreeding was shaped by viral infections and the resulting selection for ancient alleles of viral-interacting protein genes," it means Neanderthal genes related to viral resistance became prevalent in the European human populations   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:43, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
It is not correct to say that European pathogens were Neanderthal pathogens. They were pathogens in Europe which infected Neanderthals, but may well have had their main reservoirs in other species such as mosquitoes or bats, which transmitted them to other species including humans. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:23, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
"that afflicted Neanderthals"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:14, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

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Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Neanderthal/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 22:58, 9 March 2020 (UTC)


I'm on it, but it will take time. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:58, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

It's a pretty big article   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:05, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Also, this is a very popular article with a lot of traffic, and consequently, disputes are inevitable with this many eyes. @Geoffrey.landis: insists on the inclusion of Discover Magazine in the lead, and I keep trying to tell him that a magazine has no place in this article (except in the External links section). What's your opinion?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:47, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
The article should be based on scholary articles only, except for, maybe, in the "research history" and "popular culture" sections. News articles on paleontological topics are prone to inaccuracy, error, and misunderstandings of reporters, I tell from experience. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:51, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
@Geoffrey.landis: I will be deleting Discover Magazine again. If you still want it in the article, start a discussion on the talk page   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:21, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
Apologies for taking so long to look at this; a very slow edit war on a citation in an article in which I have only minor interest is not high on my list of priorities.
  • 1. User:Dunkleosteus77 stated above that the citation I added was to the lead. The citation I had added was in fact to the section 1.3 Classification, far from the lede.
  • 2. Replying to User:Jens Lallensack, the citation was not to any fact of paleontology. It was a citation to the fact that both terms have been used. I see no reason why a scholarly source is preferable for this, unless perhaps you can find a scholarly source saying that both terms are used. Absent the reference I gave, a "citation needed" note should be added.
  • 3. Dunkleosteus77 based his reversion on a statement that Discover magazine is not a reliable source. The term reliable source is not a matter of opinion. It is defined here: Wikipedia:Reliable sources, and, yes, Discover is a reliable source. If his comment is to be taken to mean that Discover may be a reliable source by Wikipedia standards but just not as a scholarly reference: as noted above, this is not a citation for a scholarly fact, it's a citation for usage.
(and in any case, I will remind you of the following statement in WP:RS: "Scholarship: Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible... When relying on primary sources, extreme caution is advised." Geoffrey.landis (talk) 23:54, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
It's different in paleontology; e.g., all our dinosaur FAs are primarily, and sometimes exclusively, based on primary sources. If the information cited is uncontroversial, sources like Discovery are generally considered OK, and I agree that this is the case here. I wonder, though, why is this necessary? Isn't this information covered by the existing source (which is also secondary, but written by an authority of the field)? If covered by that source, there is no need for a second one imo. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 08:31, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
In an article with 352 references--one that includes two footnotes and four references discussing the "h" in the spelling of "Neanderthal"-- you're seriously suggesting that deleting a citation to the fact that there are two different proposed scientific terms is reasonable because "why is this necessary?" Geoffrey.landis (talk) 15:52, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, because Discover is not a highly reputable source. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:08, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Could you make up your mind? When I point out that Discover is a reliable source by Wikipedia's specific definition, you say "oh, but we don't need a second citation." When I suggest that a second citation would be useful, you say "oh, but Discover is not a reliable source." Make up your mind.
I've said this over and over again. The term "reliable source" has a specific definition by Wikipedia. There isn't a subcategorization "this is a reliable source, but that is a highly reliable source": it's a reliable source or it isn't. It damages protocol to make up your own definition and delete citations because they don't meet your definition. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 16:48, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Those are not contradictory statements. We do not need a second citation, and Discover is not a reliable source. We do not rely on magazines and news articles to accurately report on current taxonomic status because they are written by non-experts who may misunderstand or spin a narrative which inaccurately portrays current scientific consensus, and they are not peer reviewed to ensure accuracy (I'm sure there's an editor checking for typos, but not much else). If we need someone to tell us what Donald Trump said on such and such date, then we turn to the news   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:31, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Just a thought, maybe quote from somewhere that actually uses the H.s. neanderthalensis terminology? Nothing recent I know of but could use Holloway 1985, citation I found seems to suggest this is a journal but fairly sure a book edited by E. Delson : title={The poor brain of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis: see what you please}, author={Holloway, Ralph L}, journal={Ancestors: The hard evidence}, pages={319--324}, year={1985}, publisher={Alan R. Liss New York} Rhillman (talk) 16:36, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Not entirely sure what you want me to do here. We already cite that book   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Here comes the first round. Sorry for the delay, I will have more time at hand the coming days. Do you plan to bring this to FA eventually?

  • The lead is quite loaded with citations. Citations in the lead are not required except for controversial statements, as all info should be explained in the article body anyways. Not a deal at all for GA level, but people may bring this up if you consider going to FA.
The citation being discussed was not added to the lead (nor the lede), it was in 1.3 Classification. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 23:54, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
No problem, and I do plan to go to FA   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • quite sophisticated: What does "quite" mean here? Sophisticated compared to what? This doesn't really say much. Was it on the same level to contemporary modern humans?
"quite sophisticated" to avoid people thinking "somewhat sophisticated"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • These features are often explained as adaptations to conserve heat in a cold climate, but (aside from body fat storage) they are more likely products of genetic drift and adaptations for sprinting in the warmer, forested landscape that Neanderthals often inhabited. – But is this true? Source 62 instead states "a nasal performance suitable with living in cold and dry environments can be seen as a case of convergent adaptation involving both MH Arctic populations and Neanderthals". I only had a quick look at that source, but it seems the authors make clear that the nose is indeed adapted to cold and dry climate in neanderthals. Furthermore, source 62 is only about the nose, but your sentence indicates that not only the nose but also the other features (stocky built and so on) have been proposed to represent genetic drift, which is not in the source.
Whoops, it was actually this source that mentioned genetic drift. Fixed   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • connecting to that, from further down in the article: More likely, the large nose was caused by genetic drift – there seems to be ongoing debate and this question is far from resolved. See for example this comment to one of the paper you cited: [2]. This needs to be neutral.
added. I wasn't sure how much text I should give the nose debate because there seems to be good consensus that the nose, osteologically, does not appear to show any adaptations to cold air. Even the nose reconstruction study which argues for cold-adaptation, which I appear to have omitted (but have added), says "Our twofold approach agrees with previous statements (3, 4, 7, 30) indicating that Homo neanderthalensis do not present a nasal phenotype compatible with adaptation to cold climates, at least in osteological terms"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • theologian and teacher Joachim Neander – I suggest "theologian and hymn writer" as this is what he is famous for.
I picked teacher it was included in the source, but now that I think about it, we generally don't require sources for peoples' occupations. Changed   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • individual type specimen – "individual" seems superfluous, specimens are always individuals. Maybe write instead "from this single individual to the entire group" to have it simpler.
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • to the entire group – instead "to an entire species" would be more comprehensible I think.
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • he recommended the genus name also be distinct from modern humans – you mean "from that of modern humans"? What about "he recommended to classify humans and neanderthals as separate genera".
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • The first Neanderthal remains—Engis 2—were discovered in 1829 by Dutch naturalist Philippe-Charles Schmerling in the Schmerling Caves, Belgium, but he thought it was an ancient skull of an anatomically modern human. – sentence is a bit weird. "remains" (plural) bites with "an ancient skull" (singular). What about "The first Neanderthal remains—a skull known as Engis 2—were discovered in 1829 by Dutch naturalist Philippe-Charles Schmerling in the Schmerling Caves, Belgium, but he thought they belonged to an anatomically modern human."
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • gave it to German anthropologist – it is still referring to "the bomes" so should be "them"
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • The most influential specimen was La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1. – discovered where?
added   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • French palaeontologist Marcellin Bouleauthored several publications – when?
authored several at different points in his career during the early 20th century   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • He fueled the popular image of Neanderthals as barbarous – that means that image existed before?
Yeah. Schaaffhausen was a social darwinist and believed that the human species progressed from dumb and savage to intelligent and civilized, and so also believed that Neanderthal 1 was some primitive subhuman. I don't know how much detail is entirely necessary here   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • by conventions – by convention
fixed   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • It is largely thought that H. heidelbergensis was the last common ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans after populations became isolated in Europe, Asia, and Africa respectively – shouldn't it be "before" instead of "after"? I mean, to be a common ancestor you have to live before the separation of populations.
fixed   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • 430,000 year (ka) – "year" is not "ka". It should be "430 thousand years (ka)"
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • The taxonomic distinction between H. heidelbergensis and Neanderthals is mostly due to a fossil gap – "based on" instead of "due to"
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • However, 430,000 year (ka) old bones at Sima de los Huesos could represent early Neanderthals or a closely related group, – based on what, anatomy?
what else would it be?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • basal and derived – would explain these in a gloss, maybe just "primitive" and "advanced", with "" to indicate this use is not 100% correct. These terms are of central importance for the understanding.
I don't wanna used the terms "primitive" and "advanced" in especially this context as this could also be extended to mean "stupid" and "not stupid". How about "ancestral" and from there it's pretty simple to extrapolate the meaning of "derived"?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • The quality of the fossil record greatly increases from 130 kya onwards, and specimens from this period make up the bulk of known Neanderthal skeletons – So it is rather quantity, not quality? When reading about "good quality" I think more about "well preserved". Maybe use "completeness" maybe?
changed to "much more complete"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
clarified   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Numerous dates for the Neanderthal/human split exist. – maybe better "have been suggested"?
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • The date of around 250 kya cites the Florisbad Skull ("H. helmei") as being the last common ancestor (LCA) – weird wording, a skull cannot be an ancestor, only a population can.
fixed   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • A date cites, a date uses, a date says - not sure but I found these personifications confusing. Dates can only be proposed by researchers. I would refer to hypothesis or researchers instead.
There're numerous researchers (because there are a lot of studies who propose a lot of dates)   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • and so forth - superfluous it seems, the "such as" before the list does already indicate that the list is not necessarily exhaustive.
Not really. People often use "such as" when they actually mean "these are all the examples" (especially in news media, I find). For example, down below on the Cerutti Mastodon comment, I used "such as" instead of "these are the only example", which is a actually an unfortunately common tool used in formal writing   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Using a mutation rate of – "Assuming"
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Neanderthal/Denisovans (or "Neandersovans") migrating out of Africa – so they split from H. heidelbergensis in Africa? You discuss at length when the split occurs, but please also state where it likely does occur.
Well those individuals who stayed in Africa were the ancestors of modern humans, and those who did not stay in Africa were the ancestors of Neanderthal/Denisovans. I'm not entirely certain what to put down as a location   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • as well as Southwest – unlink "as"
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • A 2017 study claimed the presence of Homo at the 130 ka Californian Cerutti Mastodon site - why only Homo; when the species is not known, why is this important here?
It was a thing in news media, such as New Scientist and the NY Times. Should I remove it?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • but this is highly unlikely – to be a bit more prudent: "unlikely" is enough, I also would use "considered". "but this is considered unlikely".
"is largely considered implausible"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • residing in certain refuge zones. – but they are only important when ice is maximal, I think this needs some explanation.
added "during glacial maximums"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • but encourage forest growth and deter megafauna; whereas frigid periods would produce the opposite – would use "," here instead of ";".
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • "Boserupian Trap": Can you link or add an explanation for this term? Is it the same as the Malthusian trap?
The entire paragraph explains the Boserupian Trap. The Malthusian trap seems to talk about population overshoot   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Neanderthals had more robust and stockier builds than modern humans, though still maintained an upright posture; – this implies that stocky build makes it difficult to maintain upright posture. It is not evident to me why this would be the case; is this covered by the source?
That was already there when I started. It was once assumed that Neanderthals did not maintain an upright posture, so this was emphasized a lot in the article when I started. I removed it   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Neanderthals had more robust and stockier builds than modern humans, though still maintained an upright posture; wider and barrel-shaped rib cages; wider pelvises; and proportionally shorter forearms and forelegs. – would be easier to read if this were two sentences, perhaps insert a stop after "upright posture". The first part is general ("stocky built"), and the second about the features that make it stocky, so these are different things that should not be put into the same list.
Is it good now that I removed the upright posture thing   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Based on 45 Neanderthal long bones – "Neanderthal" is superfluous, the topic of the article should be clear.
I mean I want to specify I'm talking about Neanderthals and not modern humans in the first sentence rather than having the reader deduce that when they go through the second sentence   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • likely an adaptation for cold-climate – why the "–" here?
No idea, removed
  • (expanded antero-posteriorly) – I suggest "expanded front-to-back"
changed to "expanded front-to-back, or antero-posteriorly)". Because I know what all the words mean I find it really confusing when you substitute things like "anteriorly" with "the front half" and things like that so I prefer to keep the actual word around   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • and to fold in on itself somewhat – this one I don't understand.
The actual worded is invaginated which, according to google, means "be turned inside out or folded back on itself to form a cavity or pouch"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
I wanted to put an image from the early 20th century (Le Moustier) and something from the late 20th century (ideally Carlton Coon's Neanderthal in a business suit but that's not PD until 2061, so next best thing is the model at the Neanderthal Museum). If that section's getting too crowded, I can remove Ernst Haeckel's family tree   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:01, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Ok, but I want to know your reasoning why you think there needs to be an image of a neanderthal in a suit to the article, how do you think it enhances the reader's experience, especially in the "History of Research" section? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:53, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
The same reason that Le Moustier is there, if you're discussing a piece of art, it's nice to actually see it   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  23:38, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
  • sinus size is not an important factor for breathing cold air – isn't this contradicting but sinuses are generally reduced in cold-adapted creatures?
No, the function of sinuses is unclear (in fact, they may have no function at all), so, even though sinuses are generally reduced in polar creatures, it cannot be said that they specifically aid in breathing cold air   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Further, a computer reconstruction of the Neanderthal nose and predicted soft tissue patterns shows some similarities to those of modern Arctic peoples, potentially meaning the noses of both populations convergently evolved for cold, dry air. – After "further" one expects an additional argument against the cold adaption hypothesis, but the opposite is the case. Maybe "in contrast" would be more suitable here.
Well no, the paragraph goes: argument against cold air (sinus size) → argument for cold air (sinuses are not important) → further argument for cold air (computer reconstruction), so the computer reconstruction is another argument in support of cold air   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • the increased wear on the front teeth compared to the back teeth probably stem from repetitive use – "stems"
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The incisors are known for being large and shovel-shaped – I suggest to delete "known for being". They either are or they are not.
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The incisors are known for being large and shovel-shaped; and there was a strangely high frequency of taurodontism, a condition where the molars are bulkier due to an enlarged pulp (tooth core), which was once thought to have been a distinguishing characteristic of Neanderthals which lent some mechanical advantage or stemmed from repetitive use, but was more likely simply a product of genetic drift. – This sentence is too long to comprehend it with a single read.
Yeah I was thinking that was problematic. Split   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • and there was a strangely high frequency – "strange" is not very encyclopedic language. Maybe "unusual"?
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Therefore, interpersonal violence or large carnivores were more likely the source of severe trauma. – more likely than what? The risky hunting strategy that was mentioned in the previous paragraph? Readers will not remember that over such a long distance.
fixed   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The article mentiones caves and settlements, but never clearly states where they actually lived. The reader may assume that they lived both in caves and settlements, but a bit more on this would be nice.
I don't really know what specifically you're looking for here. There are details about Neanderthal cave layout interspersed throughout the article where relevant   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
The article needs to state somewhere that they lived in caves in the first place. That there is evidence for living in caves, under rock overhangs, and forest settlements in the lowland. How did they look like? Another thing I'm missing is evidence for nomadic lifestyle. This will not be a hindrance for reaching GA of course. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Added under Group dynamics. Don't really know how to answer "How did they look like?"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:24, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Nonetheless, cave hyaenas likely stole food and leftovers from Neanderthal campsites, and scavenged on dead Neanderthal bodies. – Pure speculation without any evidence it seems? If so, it might not be relevant. If you keep it, please don't present it as fact; it is only a single author and there are certainly others who may disagree. Instead say "In a 2010 study, it was speculated that" or similar.
We have evidence of hyena scavenging, and I think they were citing other sources when they said the part about stealing, but I'm not on university campus anymore due to the pandemic so I won't have access to it until fall   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Got access back, the source specifically says "and hyenas even have stolen mammoth kitchen rubbish from a human camp site and imported at least one long bone fragment into their Perick Cave den (Diedrich 2005c)"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:59, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Ok but that is another source by the same author. Even though, if you think it is totally uncontroversial then leave it as is. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 06:16, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I can add more sources from different authors if you want (I could just move in the source used in the cave hyena article for starters)   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  14:46, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Alternatively, it has also been claimed that the holes were made by a scavenging hyaena as there are a lack of cut marks stemming from whittling, but it is highly unlikely the punctures were made by teeth, and cut marks are not always present on bone flutes. – If you need to shorten, this would be sentence that is not entirely necessary, it does not tell us anything new about the Neanderthal.
For art, I wanted to include at least 1 viewpoint that says it's art and one that doesn't   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • of the Iraqi Shanidar 4 – Iraq exists since 1921, founded by the British. This neanderthal is certainly not an Iraqi.
I mean it's the same as saying "the French Moula-Guercy Cave". The cave has existed for a much longer time than the country of France, but we still say it's a French cave   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • American archaeologist Alexander Marshack said that – "speculated" might be a more honest word.
done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The makers may have been a transitional culture of Neanderthals – not quite clear: transitional between what?
clarified   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Neanderthals collected the porous volcanic pumice, which, for contemporary humans, was probably used for polishing points and needles. – I do not understand the part with the contemporary humans here. Humans might have used it for polishing but Neanderthals not?
There aren't any points and needles associated with Neanderthal remains, but the source juxtaposed Neanderthals are associated with pumice and contemporary humans who are associated with pumice are thought to have used them to polish their points and needles   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • At Abri du Maras, France, there is evidence that Neanderthals produced string and cordage – I think the reader may want to know what this evidence is, since these materials are, as mentioned later, biodegradable.
added   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Neanderthal were able to create fire – "Neanderthals"
fixed   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • and utilise complex spatial organisation – Of what? Of their settlements?
added   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • and the structures may have been used as light sources – As light sources? Did they burn them? How do I have to imagin that?
I don't know where that came from, deleted   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The "Le Moustier bust" picture: Is this supposed to be a juvenile, a male? I suggest to add this information to the image caption.
added   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • and there were also traces of the antibiotic-producing Penicillium – the drug would only be Penicillium chrysogenum though? Or are there more species producing drugs that Neanderthals might have used?
clarified   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • It was once thought that Neanderthals did not have language, and cognitive scientist Philip Lieberman declared that they – I think we need a date here. When did he declared that? The reader has no idea if this is a old idea steming from the 1890s or a more recent one; this is important I think.
He's been saying that since the 70s up until 2007 (as far as I've checked), and then he recants in 2015 (but I haven't done an in-depth search of Lieberman's publication history). I'm not sure how much to include   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • In 2016, the DNA of Neanderthals from Denisova Cave shows evidence of interbreeding 100 kya – That would mean that a year later the DNA didn't show the evidence anymore. Maybe "was revealed to show" or similar.
fixed   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • However, the Neanderthals of the German Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave – Why the "however" here? This tells the reader that the information given by the previous sentence needs to be corrected, which is not the case?
it's amending "may have occurred as early as 120 kya"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Anthropologist John D. Hawks has argued that the genetic similarity to Neanderthals may be the result of both common ancestry and interbreeding, as opposed to just one or the other.[337] – That common ancestry results in similar genomes goes without saying. Do we really need to point this out?
not really; when it comes to genetics, the average reader doesn't really trust intuition   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • these dates are likely incorrect as they were based on ambiguous artefacts instead of direct dating – This is not neutral, as one study is declared to be correct and the others as "likely incorrect". This incorrectness is thus presented as fact although it is based on only a single study, so evidence for scientific consensus is not provided. This could be resolved with slight rewording: "these dates have been contestet" or "a 2014 study questioned these dates". Same problem in many other places of the article, I think it needs some work in this aspect before it can go to FAC. We need more distance.
The consensus we've arrived at in the article is that Neanderthals died out 40 kya (as opposed to 30 kya or 40–30 kya), so we present the Ebro River refuge hypothesis as being defunct/debased. What other parts of the article are you worried about neutrality?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • and DNA evidence indicates H. sapiens contact with Neanderthals and admixture as early as 100 kya – isn't this content for the "Interbreeding with modern humans" section? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:16, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
It's relevant in a couple areas. It's a common misconception that Neanderthals went extinct at first contact, which makes it relevant to discuss contact history here   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The flower burial was listed under "Art". Not sure if this would be art, does the source say so? If not, I would remove it from the list, also because the flower burial is mentioned in another section already. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
The source says "The association of flowers with Neanderthals adds a whole new dimension to our knowledge of his humannes, indicating that he had a 'soul' " which really sounds like flowers being used as artistic expression, but he doesn't specifically use the word "art" (but I can only access the first page preview so I don't know if he used it later)   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:33, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
If the flowers indicate they had spirit, couldn't this be just religion or similar? You need a soul for that, but that is not necessarily art. In any case it is not ideal that the flower burial is treated twice in this article in separate paragraphs. I can send you the paper if you want btw. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:47, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Closing note: Congratulations for the GA! This is a good deal of work, and a good read. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:47, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

'uncertainty' of oldest Neanderthal bones

In the article: "The oldest potential Neanderthal bones are dated to 430 kya, but the classification is uncertain." This could be read as saying they were something other than Neanderthal, but I think the certainty is that the remains are of a Homo that is after the Neanderthal / Denisovan split, and any remaining uncertainty is how far their development is from more recent Neanderthals. Just checking if anyone can find something that indicates more uncertainty remains before I remove /alter this, and frankly given how subtle the remaining uncertainty is, suggestions how to put this very welcome! I note the cited article alongside this (Meyer et al) states "we recover nuclear DNA sequences from two specimens, which show that the Sima de los Huesos hominins were related to Neanderthals rather than to Denisovans, indicating that the population divergence between Neanderthals and Denisovans predates 430,000 years ago". I also note a review of the field by Galway-Witham et al 2019 stating "The large fossil sample from the Sima de los Huesos in Atapuerca can now be firmly placed in the Neanderthal clade through cranial and dental morphology, facial growth patterns, and genomic DNA". They quote Meyer plus Arsuaga 2014 and Lacruz 2015 to back this up. Rhillman (talk) 15:54, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Meyers said they were related to Neanderthals, not that they were Neanderthals, and later says "are early Neanderthals (or closely related to these)" so he makes no clear-cut claim on their taxonomic status. Arsuaga said that "We argue that the [Sima de los Huesos] p-deme is sufficiently different from that of H. neanderthalensis so as to be considered a separate taxon." Lacruz refers to them as the ancestors of Neanderthals. So, it's clear that when Witham said "Neanderthal clade", she did not mean H. neanderthalensis   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. So to avoid anyone thinking the uncertainty might place them outside the Neanderthal clade, would it be appropriate to alter to "The oldest potential Neanderthal bones are dated to 430 kya, but the classification is uncertain, but within the Neanderthal clade." ? Rhillman (talk) 13:25, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

If this is the direction you want to go, it is just better sentence structure to make what it is the focus of the sentence, rather than an afterthought at the end: "The oldest bones within the Neanderthal clade, and possibly of Neanderthal itself, are dated . . ." (or something of the sort). Agricolae (talk) 14:29, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Species articles written in singular form

There is a discussion about whether Neanderthal should be written in the plural or singular form Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology#Species articles written in singular form. Cheers, Jack (talk) 10:36, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 21:04, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

(
)
[For ALT2] Scrapers made with smooth clam shells from Grotta dei Moscerini, Italy
[For ALT2] Scrapers made with smooth clam shells from Grotta dei Moscerini, Italy
  • Reviewed: Couma utilis
  • Comment: I want something that doesn't requires the words may have, possibly, it is likely, etc. (so, nothing like "Neanderthals may have made cave paintings"), and I want something to do with Neanderthals and marine resources especially because it was once thought that Neanderthals didn't want anything to do with water until recently (so recent, I believe, that the sentiment was once on the Wikipedia article)

Improved to Good Article status by Dunkleosteus77 (talk). Self-nominated at 20:44, 7 April 2020 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
QPQ: Done.

Overall: I prefer ALT1 with ALT2 as a second choice, but all the hooks are fine. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:29, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

about "just northeast of Kazakhstan in Russia"

Hi, I mean that Kazakhstan is an independent country, not in the Russia. Please attention to it. --Alphy Haydar (talk) 10:10, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

No, it's not northeastern Kazakhstan, it's northeast of Kazakhstan in Russia. It's like saying northeast of Spain in France, or northeast of Michigan in Canada. I've reordered it to "in Russia just northeast of Kazakhstan"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  14:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Style

I propose replacing the abbreviation "KYA" with the words "thousand years ago" throughout the article, in order to improve clarity. As a general principle, I don't believe that Wikipedia articles should use abbreviations unless they are in common use across the readership. LuciusAeliusSejanus (talk) 10:36, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I was originally going to do that, but then dates kept getting used quite often (namely with "538–315 kya, 553–321 kya, 565-503 kya, 654–475 kya, 690–550 kya, 765–550 kya, 741–317 kya, and 800–520 kya") and saying "thousand years ago" every time would make it cluttered. We can also use BP if you think that'd make it easier to visualize as a calendar date   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  13:45, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

New book

I have just finished reading Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes. It is by far the best book I have ever read about the Neanderthals, and one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. I have added to the article some of her views on the string. She is on the side of those who see the Chatelperonian as Sapiens, but she also doubts whether there was any borrowing of Sapiens technology, a question which I do not see specifically discussed in the article. The book is intended for a popular readership and does not have notes or a bibliography, but it is highly praised by experts such as Lee Berger and Tori Herridge of the Natural History Museum, London, who writes 'Kindred is a tour de force. A rich and beautiful synthesis of all that is known about Nenderthal biology and culture, it should be required reading for anyone interested in the history of humanity.' Dudley Miles (talk) 12:58, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

There are 2 hypotheses for what the Châtelperronean is: 1) Neanderthal/modern human mixing of cultures, or 2) modern human technology. The latter would mean no cultural mixing took place. Books are inaccessible to me, so since you have access, add what you'd like   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  14:55, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, but at present I do not wish to work seriously on the Neanderthals. There are many editors interested in the subject, whereas I am the only editor currently working seriously on later Anglo-Saxon history, so I prefer to concentrate on that area. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:36, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Please update with: "New perspectives on Neanderthal dispersal and turnover from Stajnia Cave (Poland)"

I think this paper contains some info that could be used to update section Neanderthal#Inter-group relations and maybe some maps(?)

It's currently featured in 2020 in science like so:

image from the study

Scientists report the oldest Neanderthal specimen in Central-Eastern Europe, found in the Stajnia Cave. A ~80,000 years old tooth dated via mtDNA shows that at a time of environmental changes Neanderthals most related to those of Northern Caucasus moved farther from their southern home areas than previously known.[1][2]

  1. ^ "The oldest Neanderthal DNA of Central-Eastern Europe". phys.org. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  2. ^ Picin, Andrea; Hajdinjak, Mateja; Nowaczewska, Wioletta; Benazzi, Stefano; Urbanowski, Mikołaj; Marciszak, Adrian; Fewlass, Helen; Socha, Paweł; Stefaniak, Krzysztof; Żarski, Marcin; Wiśniewski, Andrzej; Hublin, Jean-Jacques; Nadachowski, Adam; Talamo, Sahra (8 September 2020). "New perspectives on Neanderthal dispersal and turnover from Stajnia Cave (Poland)". Scientific Reports. 10 (1): 14778. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-71504-x. ISSN 2045-2322. Retrieved 9 October 2020. Text and images are available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

--Prototyperspective (talk) 10:59, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Cavemen?

The lede currently contains the following statement:

They predominantly resided in caves, and moved between caves seasonally.

Really? This was certainly what I was taught in school 50 years ago, but I thought we had moved to an understanding that artifacts extant in caves simply were better able to survive the millennia than those left exposed to the elements. But what do I know? So I checked the source attached to the statement. Not willing to pay $40 for the entire article, I was able to only read the abstract, which does not contain the word "cave", nor anything else that would support this claim. In deference to others who know more about this article and the topic, I will not excise the passage now, but it is my intent to do so if no one steps forth with convincing reasons to keep it. Unschool 06:27, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

If it seems like an absence of evidence argument: we do have open air sites, but only 2 show evidence of long-term settlement, and the rest look like temporary slaughtering and butchering grounds. Were Neanderthals commonly living beyond caves for long periods, we should expect to find many more long-term settlement areas than short-term ones, since the former are more likely to produce more items and thus leave more evidence behind if we assume that all sites are more or less equally vulnerable to degradation. As this is not the case, it is not an unsafe assumption to say they mainly took up in caves. That being said, the wording is too definitive, so I changed it to "They may have frequented caves, and moved between caves seasonally"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  06:52, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

There are few places where open air settlement can be explored. Just look at herbivores. We find most Middle Paleolithic herbivore bones in caves but we know that they didn't live in caves. Caves are sediment traps that accumulate bones. Bones are also brought into caves by predators. The reality is that except in rare cases like German brown coal mining, open-air occupational layers have been removed through glaciation or inaccessible to archaeologists.Aerchasúr (talk) 14:10, 1 December 2020 (UTC) Aerchasúr (talk) 14:10, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Citation of Weyrich et al

The citation of Weyrich et al. 2017 is really questionable. This paper should not have made it through review and it is really shocking that it did. If you look at the detail from an ancient DNA perspective it is extremely weak. The vast majority of DNA reported in this paper is contamination. The rest is too rare to ascertain and is associated with plants and animals we don't have genomes for. There isn't enough reads from plants and fauna of interest to infer consumption. There are lot of problems that are just not dealt with. See Mann, Allison E., et al. "Do I have something in my teeth? The trouble with genetic analyses of diet from archaeological dental calculus." Quaternary International (2020). Aerchasúr (talk) 23:44, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Pat Shipman's Neanderthal eye white theory

Pat Shipman's theory that Neanderthals didn't have eye whites, and that modern humans evolved to have eye whites through communicating with wolves, is a fringe theory that is not based on a testable hypothesis. It has been described as conjectural by at least one reviewer, and I'm sure it's been criticized by others. I don't think it merits any mentioning in the article much less a whole paragraph. Hunan201p (talk) 13:25, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, that was only in there because I was told I needed to include more books, but I'm curious why you deleted the entire section but kept disease and climate change   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:17, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Neanderthal extermination theory -- outdated lead (WP:UNDUE)

Greetings to all.

This section of the talk page concerns the following passage from the lead at Neanderthal:


They most likely went extinct due to competition with, or extermination by, immigrating European early modern humans[13][14][15]


The three sources given for this statement include:


  1. Neanderthal extinction by competitive exclusion - a primary source which tests its own hypothesis, published in 2008
  4. The Third Chimpanzee - an extremely biased novel, published in 1992, representing a social anthropologist's personal musings. (Note: the author characterizes Neanderthals as "subhumans" on page 44)
  6. Rapid ecological turnover and its impact on Neanderthal and other human populations - this reference is a primary source which tests its hypothesis with climate data.

I regard these sources as inadequate, outdated, and inappropriate for the position of Neanderthal "extermination" and out-competition.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Neither the two research papers nor the novel offer any physical evidence for Neanderthal extermination, and the evidence for out-competition is weak, being based on highly theoretical interpretations of climate data; which is WP:UNDUE weight to a primary source's pet theory.

There is also an issue with the publication dates of these references. Crucially, they all pre-date the recovery of autosomal DNA from Neanderthals in the 2010s, followed by the sequencing of a Neanderthal genome, and the discovery that most living people harbor some Neanderthal ancestry. These findings effectively killed the leading theories that preceeded them, including the 'pure replacement' (extermination) theory of Neanderthal extinction, as well as the idea that modern humans out-competed them.


Hence, while the three sources given here might not be inconsistent with the common idea of their time, they are essentially rejected by today's authors. João Zilhão summarizes this shift of opinion in his review article, Neandertal-Modern Human Contact in Western Eurasia:

During the last two decades of the twentieth century, the  debate concerning the emergence of European modern  humans and the fate of the Neandertals revolved around  the polar alternatives of “Multiregionalism” and “Recent  African Origin.” In their original formulations, where  Multiregionalism saw modern humans as principally locally  evolving from ancestral populations of “archaics,” Recent African Origin defined them as a new species originating at least 150,000 years ago in Africa, from where the rest of the world was eventually colonized, with Eurasia’s aboriginal humans, especially the Neandertals, becoming extinct without descent in the process.

A minority position, “Assimilation,” accepted recent Out- of-Africa migration and/or genetic diffusion but viewed Neandertals as a geographical variant of Homo sapiens, not as a different biological species. In this view, the disappearance of Eurasian archaics from the paleontological record after about 40,000 years ago would have been caused by loss of isolation and ensuing integration with the wider human gene pool, that is, by demographic and/or natural selection processes operating in a context of significant population admixture.

Human Paleontology (Trinkaus 2007), Genetics (Hawks 2012) and Archeology (Zilhão 2006a, 2011, 2012) now concur in indicating that such Assimilation models best match the empirical data concerning the replacement of Neandertals by modern humans accumulated over the last 15 years of research developments, briefly summarized below.

So, today's view of Neanderthals is not that they were exterminated, nor that they were outcompeted. Neanderthal populations were genetically merged with Sapiens populations, which were larger of those than Neanderthals. Over time, Neanderthal ancestry was reduced (in some cases quite rapidly), and Neanderthal morphological traits largely vanished. It is indicated that the admixture was driven exclusively by Neanderthal males mating with modern human females.[1]

  1. ^ Matoo-Smith, Lisa; Ann Horsburgh, K (2012). DNA for Archaeologists. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press. p. 101.

Another review article by by Villa and Roebroeks reached the same conclusion as Zilhão:

Neandertals are the best-studied of all extinct hominins, with a rich fossil record sampling hundreds of individuals, roughly dating from between 350,000 and 40,000 years ago. Their distinct fossil remains have been retrieved from Portugal in the west to the Altai area in central Asia in the east and from below the waters of the North Sea in the north to a series of caves in Israel in the south. Having thrived in Eurasia for more than 300,000 years, Neandertals vanished from the record around 40,000 years ago, when modern humans entered Europe. Modern humans are usually seen as superior in a wide range of domains, including weaponry and subsistence strategies, which would have led to the demise of Neandertals. This systematic review of the archaeological records of Neandertals and their modern human contemporaries finds no support for such interpretations, as the Neandertal archaeological record is not different enough to explain the demise in terms of inferiority in archaeologically visible domains. Instead, current genetic data suggest that complex processes of interbreeding and assimilation may have been responsible for the disappearance of the specific Neandertal morphology from the fossil record.


Since the statement in the current lead doesn't seem to reflect any modern review articles exploring the fate of Neanderthals, my mind says it should be removed and replaced with a new affirmation of more comprehensive, up-to-date materials. I look forward to your contributions to the article and this talk page, and I truly appreciate your consideration. Have a great day. Hunan201p (talk) 13:01, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I added assimilation but I wouldn't call it the new consensus since the archeological basis for their arguments hinges on the assignment of the Chatelperronean to Neanderthals learning from modern human cultures   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  18:49, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Bruniquel

This isn't to question Neanderthals in Europe around the period, but despite the Bruniquel discovery being somewhat old when I recently searched about this I found hypotheses that these could have been made by Neanderthals, a study to date when the stalagmites broke, but when searching about developments like if evidence of sout and human artefacts were found it was more difficult. I then wondered how WP:DUE it is in this article. If there were more recent developments showing it wasn't natural or made by other animals (i.e. carnivores are known to pile up debris), it would alternatively be nice to update the section. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 23:11, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Bruniquel Cave preserves burned bones, highly unlikely to have occurred naturally because how would a forest fire get so deep in a cave?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:11, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, burnt bones are definitely an important finding that should be mentioned. —PaleoNeonate – 11:34, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
You don't need anyone's permission to add it   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  22:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
Since the default link only showed a few sentences of an abstract I initially believed searching for more sources was necessary, but the pubmed abstract was more complete and already mentioned fire and burnt bones (added). Thanks again, —PaleoNeonate – 03:31, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

This page has become filled with speculation, if not outright fantasy. You see "[Neanderthals] may have...", "might have...", "could have" entirely too many times to approach the content seriously. The Neanderthal page used to be based on sound, scientific, peer-reviewed, evidence-based fact and theory. Now it appears to be one person's idealized fantasy of the Neanderthal. The page has also become long-winded, and shows a peculiar fixation on comparisons between Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans. The same constant comparisons are not made between chimpanzees and bonobos, elephants and mammoths or even between remarkably similar bird species in their respective pages, and thus it seems as if there is a motive and bias in the writing. This bias becomes clear when one reaches the end of the page and sees the statement "resurgence of the multiregional hypothesis", when in fact, there has been no such resurgence in the scientific community.

Neanderthals might have cooked food by boiling...but there is literally no evidence anywhere on earth that they did. No stone or ceramic pots or eating/drinking/cooking vessels have been found and attributed to Neanderthals. They haven't even been unearthed at modern human sites prior to the late Paleolithic.

Neanderthals might have decorated themselves with red ochre...but again, there is no evidence, just speculation.

Neanderthals might have painted cave walls...no evidence. The "evidence" is a single cave that was occupied by Anatomically Modern Humans, and the date is disputed. More speculation.

Neanderthals might have had language...but the position of the hyoid bone, lack of figurative art, lack of engraving, and reduced brain areas associated with language, critical thought and emotion strongly suggest they did not have any type of language as we associate language with modern humans. Crows and dolphins are known to communicate, but we don't generally refer to their communication as "language". Any suggestion that Neanderthals had a fully developed language is speculative at best. So yet again, speculation without evidence.

Neanderthals might have made music...No evidence. All "evidence" for Neanderthal art, body decoration and music are contemporary with modern human presence in Europe. Lots of speculation...no proof.

In no other Wikipedia page is so much fantasy allowed to pass. Let's stick to the FACTS. Citing one researcher's speculation is not a substitution for a legitimate peer-reviewed source.

Wikipedia pages should be un-biased and objective. This page is not. In fact, it's dangerously close to "original research" in it's heavy use/citation of what is literally original research.

Earth Tones In Autumn (talk) 01:39, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

This is standard for any article on an extinct anything. For example, you can't say "T. rex was 8 metric tons on average," you can only say "T. rex is estimated to have been 8 metric tons on average" because there's no way of verifying things like these. You can't go back in a time machine, so all we really have is speculation, especially in anthropology. There is a huge debate on if Neanderthals had language and all the other items you mentioned; it doesn't matter which side of the debate you personally favor, to omit it would leave the article incomplete   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:02, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

citation of john d hawks

Anthropologist John D. Hawks has argued that the genetic similarity to Neanderthals may be the result of both common ancestry and interbreeding, as opposed to just one or the other. doi=10.1146/annurev-anthro-092412-155548, Significance of Neandertal and Denisovan genomes in human evolution

This line seemed really weird to me because there's no sense in arguing that some aspect of genetic similarity between two species of the same genus have common ancestry unless you don't understand taxonomy, so I took a look at the paper. It's an annual review and makes no argument, and furthermore does not actually seem to address the topic: he mentions common ancestry once, in order to give background to his section on the research around direct ancestry. Since the line is superfluous and the citation does not support the line I have removed both.

romnempire (talk) 14:52, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the NYT and David Reich's statement

@Dunkleosteus77: Hello, regarding this edit [[8]], is there a general policy that News articles, even those quoting scientists in the relevant feilds, can never be cited? I did not think that was the case. I recall a policy stating that they can be used in a supplementary manner (and many articles here here on scientific subjects do so). It seems relevant information that should be included that there is some uncertaintly regarding the the proposal of widespread Neanderthal admixture in Africans, and David Reich is certainly a prominant and notable expert in the field (his opinion is likewise notable). Skllagyook (talk) 05:03, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

The fact that scientific articles often quote news articles is not relevant as many editors do not understand the rules and often break them. I do not think there is a general rule against citing newspapers, but quotations of scientists' views by journalists are better avoided on a subject like Neanderthals, where there is a danger of comments being misquoted or sensationalized. It would be different if it was an article by Reich, and I cannot check the source as it appears to be a dead link. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:45, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
@Dudley Miles: Here is a functioning version of the link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/science/neanderthal-dna-africa.html
This is a quote from the article linked above (which you should be able to check):
"But while evidence has been building that modern humans left Africa in waves, and that those migrations began much earlier than once thought, some scientists disputed the evidence that people of African descent may be carrying Neanderthal genes."
"David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, praised much of the study but said he had doubts about how extensive the flow of DNA back to Africa could have been. “It looks like this is a really weak signal,” he said of the data."
Am am not aware of a paper puplished by him on the subject. But it seems that skepticism of the recent paper's proposal by a scentist as notable as Reich deserves a mention on the page/should be incorporated somehow. Skllagyook (talk) 09:53, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
I cannot access the article as I get a message that I have exceeded my free allowance and I do not wish to pay. However, my point is as I state above that a journalist's account of what a scientist says is not a reliable source. In addition, it is not clear from your quote whether Reich (if he is quoted correctly) is saying that the signal is so weak as to be valueless or accepting it but querying the extent of the gene flow. I think we should wait for more clarity. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:55, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
  • We just had this discussion Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology#Do we cite news articles? regarding the inclusion of news sources on Homo longi even if they quoted "the experts". A peer-reviewed journal article is a secondary source since it's been viewed and approved by disinterested parties. A news article can only ever be a tertiary source summarizing the journal article (i.e., no better than Wikipedia), or a primary source hosting all kinds of opinions which may or may not pass peer-review. They may be used for some topics, namely discovery of specimens as details on this matter are oftentimes excluded from peer-reviewed sourced, but in this case I disagree, and, as Dudley pointed out, it's not clear what Reich is actually saying here   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  14:18, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

a journalist's account of what a scientist says is not a reliable source - sorry, that's simply a load of bull. A reliable source is a reliable source, the New York Times IS such, and when it comes to quoting people in articles, that one of the things they're most stringent about. It is very safe to say that anything the NYT quotes David Reichs as saying is exactly what he intended for them to say, and they do review and confirm what they've quoted them saying before it goes to print. It doesn't matter if the journalist is a scientist or not - the SCIENTIST is the one that gave the god damn quote to the journalist and approved its being printed with his name attached to it! For all practical purposes, we can consider those words to be directly from Reichs, and your casting journalists as being haphazard when they quote people is bordering on libel. Ping @Skllagyook: @Dunklesteus77: @Dudley Miles: (note: I have no objection to its exclusion if there are OTHER GOOD REASONS to not include it, but claiming that the NYT is an unreliable source I strongly object to) 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:50F6:C1D6:31E7:5B10 (talk) 10:28, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Evolution and homogeneity

From article as of 12 May 2022:

If it is likely Neanderthal skin colour differed significantly from region to region, such genetic variation may contradict the evidence of neanderthal homogeneity.[217][218]

Neither of these sources appear to verify. I'm not seeing anything in either link about skin, hair or eye color. "Pigmentation" is also absent from both papers. Here are the full text links to the sources cited:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6594762/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6880983/

It would appear that this is a case of original research. -- Hunan201p (talk) 22:08, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree and the qualification "If..." makes the comment so vague it is meaningless. I have deleted. Dudley Miles (talk) 07:12, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

extinction

When extinction of the neanderthals is mentioned in the article, why is no mentioning of assimilation or absorption? Jochum (talk) 21:17, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Under Cause section, Modern human subsection, 2nd paragraph Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 16:42, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Regarding Clothes

I thing it is bad tendency to talk about Neanderthals could not do this or that, that modern humans did, to later find out that they could. In regards to if Neanderthals could stich or sew their clothes, their may be no evidence in regards to needles. But there is also no evidence that they did not have needles. At least there is evidence for thread. There is evidence that Denisovans had needles. At least there was found one older or as old as the oldest needle found connected to modern humans.

https://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0711-worlds-oldest-needle-found-in-siberian-cave-that-stitches-together-human-history/

Why assume that the Neanderthals did not have needles when the Denisovans did? Perhaps modern humans learned making warm clothes from the Neanderthals, when they met them in northern areas?

Perhaps farfetched, but where is the evidence about when modern humans started to sew clothes. Jochum (talk) 02:38, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

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The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Why? 165.234.101.96 (talk) 14:01, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Species or subspecies

which ones say "Or Subspecies" and which ones say just species. If only like 1 source says subspecies we might as well just say species Troopersho (talk) 23:03, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Reducing sources in the lead

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Citations

The MOS basically says that citations in the lead aren't really necessary unless the material is challenged, likely to be challenged, or controversial.

Currently, nearly every sentence in the lead has a citation. It's really cluttered reading, especially the longer lists.

If we can get agreement from other editors, I propose eliminating most of the citations from the lead, to both make it easier on the reader, and to conform more closely with the MOS guidance. 71.11.5.2 (talk) 15:38, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

The MOS is a bit vague. The usual rule is that the lead should be an unreferenced summary of the referenced main text. Everything in the lead should be referenced in the main text, and no citations are needed except for quotes, which are always referenced. If you go ahead on this basis, I do not think anyone will object. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:46, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
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