Talk:Neanderthal extinction

Who's "Jordan" mentioned in hybridization section
It states "Jordan, in his work Neanderthal, points out that without some interbreeding, certain features on some "modern" skulls of Eastern European Cro-Magnon heritage are hard to explain" Who is Jordan (not mentioned anywhere else in this article.) No ref also --Lerikson (talk) 23:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This will be Paul Jordan (no Wikipedia article as yet), as for example here. Note that the book is already 11+ years behind the cutting edge. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.165 (talk) 02:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Requiring more energy
I've tagged this as it needs a citation to a source which makes the claim but also links it to climate change and extinction. Dougweller (talk) 07:09, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Social interaction hypothesis
Definitely not an expert, but I remember watching a pop science programme by Dr. Alice Roberts a couple of years ago called The Incredible Human Journey on the BBC. Unless I've completely imagined it, the series talked about how though the Neanderthals were stronger, stockier and just as intelligent, if not more so given their technological superiority, they failed to socially 'network' in the way homo sapiens did. Similar artifacts found over great distances suggested that human beings traded further and wider and were able to use their group advantage over the Neanderthals who stayed more isolated. Did I completely imagine this segment of the show? Are there any theories like this? Saint91 (talk) 19:55, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Neanderthal gonorrhea extinction?
This statement is included regarding possible causes of pandemic extinction of Neanderthals caused by interaction with modern humans: "A disease that should be mentioned is gonorrhea. It arose about 200,000 years ago. Along with differences in social and sexual behavior, this sexually transmitted infection could be the cause of the extinction." I find this statement extremely dubious at best and in need of much clarification, as well as evidence to support this conjecture. First, why should gonorrhea be mentioned? Is there any evidence leading one to believe this disease in particular may have afflicted Neanderthals as an epidemic? Second, please cite a source confirming that gonorrhea originated 200,000 years ago. Third, knowledge of social and sexual behavior of Neanderthals is extremely limited, certainly not to the point where epidemiological data could be collected or analyzed. Fourth, gonorrhea is not recognized to be fatal to modern humans and no evidence exists that it would be fatal to Neanderthals. If no one can provide any supporting evidence for these claims within two weeks, I am removing this extremely dubious claim on grounds that it is pure speculation. 63.115.56.33 (talk) 14:05, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Food
From the numbers of sheep and goat bones that turn up in human deposits these had obviously been domesticated at an early date, which gives a much more reliable food supply than hunting. The human female left in the safer environment of the caves and with a more reliable food supply would live longer and produce more children. Even better when agricuture arrived.

The division of labour theory makes sense. With the greater numbers of humans living together it was possible to identify and make better use of those who had natural skills. Anybody who spends his time stone knapping can produce good quality stone tools for almost any purpose and could trade surplus tools for say, goat or sheep joints. Such a social system allows some people to simply get on with what they are best at doing.

None of the information given seems to mention that the Neandertals ever got away from being locked into an erratic hunting mode from their very beginning. The Neadertals must have seen the herding life style of the humans, so is there any evidence that they ever copied this and may have given themselves a possibly more secure future?AT Kunene (talk) 13:26, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

"Competitive Advantage"
I'm not an expert in biology but I believe the term "competitive advantage" may be slightly misleading. Competitive advantage is a term that usually refers to a modified theory of Ricardian comparitive advantage and implies an economic efficiency, specifically with connotations regarding commercial trade. I believe "natural advantage" or "evolutionary advantage" may convey what the article references better. --Rotellam1 (talk) 18:42, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Haldane and interbreeding
In the Interbreeding section is the following statement, which is problematic:

"Although modern humans share some nuclear DNA with the extinct Neanderthals, the two species do not share any mitochondrial DNA,[36] which in primates is always maternally transmitted. This observation has prompted the hypothesis that whereas female humans interbreeding with male Neanderthals were able to generate fertile offspring, the progeny of female Neanderthals who mated with male modern humans were either rare, absent or sterile (in line with Haldane's rule).[37]"

Our summary of Haldane's rule relates to a gender bias in the potential sterility of the progeny (e.g. it would predict that were if one of the genders of the progeny were to be sterile, it would likely be the heterozygote gender, in humans the sons). At least as I am reading it, this would be the case independent of the gender of the parents. Looking at ref. 37, it is actually referring to the progeny of the children, so our summary of its result is inaccurate. It also suggests other possibilities, that progeny might have been raised in a Neanderthal context and not bred back into the human line. I don't think our summary is an accurate representation of the Hypothesis paper, and I am not sure that the paper itself adequately describes the phenomenon. Further, there is a problem with the weight given the whole paragraph. It starts with a decade-old observation (a lifetime with regard to the interbreeding genetics) that ignores the absence of Y-chromosome markers. Then there follows this Hypothesis paper. I am not very familiar with this e-journal, but a look at description of the editorial board gives no indication that they have the expertise to represent peer reviewers. Should we really be given speculation appearing in this atypical venue the kind of play we are giving it? Agricolae (talk) 15:37, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I don’t understand why the article’s phrase “and they would require 30% more energy than modern humans would for running or walking” is cited as not being verified in the referenced source. The referenced source says, “The relatively short limbed Neanderthals would have had costs of walking approximately 30% larger than the anatomically modern humans that replaced them.” which is exactly what the article said.

Mike Sarles 24.254.238.231 (talk) 14:48, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

More muscles means more vulnerable for famine
I read that Neandertaler had more muscles than humans It is well-documented that humans with more muscles are more vulnerable during famine. E.g. in the battle of Stalingrad German soldiers with more muscles died first. The added value of more muscles is limited for humans because they rely more on tools and corporation. So could this be an explanation for extinction? I have no reliable sources, but I do not understand that this rather obvious hypothesis is not mentioned here. Andries (talk) 09:21, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Extinction by violence & Anatomical differences
They wouldn't have been any match against the swifter tribes with projectile weapons. The war parties from tribes that could strike from a distance and run, could have picked off their defenses one by one, and then raided the resources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bruce.1 (talk • contribs) 12:27, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 14 July 2014

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 12:49, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Neanderthal extinction hypotheses → Neanderthal extinction – It's more to the point, precise, and concise in the context to the article's scope, Neanderthal extinction. That there are several hypotheses is besides the point, unless the nature of this article is more about those extinction hypotheses than the extinction itself. Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 11:02, 30 July 2014 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 10:32, 22 July 2014 (UTC) Cold Season (talk) 20:10, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.



Discussion

 * Any additional comments:


 *  Tentative Support. The article is at present about the hypotheses, but an article is needed about the extincton generally, and a separate article about the hypotheses seems superfluous. In a recent talk, Chris Stringer attributed the extinction mainly to an inability to cope with dramatic fluctuations during the last glacial period (Heinrich events?), but I have not seen a written source which could be cited for this theory. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:23, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose - I don't think the extinction is in doubt, rather the how of the extinction is what is debated. The how of the extinction is what is addressed by the various hypotheses. If there were more undisputed data (e.g. written records), then the article would be n the facts of the extinction, as an event in history. However, the extinction as a historical event is not completely understood, and thus we rely on hypotheses to explain the extinction event in full or at least in part. Therefore, I would say that the emphasis of the article is on a discussion of the possible how-factors, the possible influences on the Neanderthals that led to their extinction, or in other words, the hypotheses on the extinction event. - Boneyard90 (talk) 16:51, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * It does not matter if anyone do or do not think the extinction is in doubt; that's not the point. The topic's scope is simply the extinction, not the hypotheses. And the content presents the different views or "hows and ifs" (e.g. the hypotheses) of that topic. No fluff, no comment, no implication, or emphasis in the title. It's just straight: what's the topic? And if I may so freely use an example scooped from the "See also" section of this article, it's Quaternary extinction event and not Quaternary extinction event hypotheses. --Cold Season (talk) 02:28, 17 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Giving it one last relist. You might want to drop a note at some of the relevant WikiProjects in the hope of generating some more comments or there's a fair chance this will be closed as 'no consensus'. Jenks24 (talk) 11:02, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * No consensus :). Both the proposer and the commenters above are right: "Neanderthal extinction" is a better title, but it does not correspond with the topic of this article, which is entirely about "Neanderthal extinction hypotheses". Had anybody spent some time at better organizing material in this and the parent article (Neanderthal) to make a more coherent story, I'd wholeheartedly support, but at this point the titles are articles' least problems. No such user (talk) 14:55, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose This article is about the extinction hypotheses. Details on the extinction itself can be included in this article, the parent Neanderthal article, or a separate article.  (What would an article on Neanderthal extinction contain aside from the extinction hypotheses?  Last dates that Neanderthal remains were found at various locations?)--Wikimedes (talk) 02:38, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * If this article is strictly about the hypotheses, then would the creation of an article for the extinction be proper? If not, then there's no basis for what's said. In regards to your rhetorical question. No. We present the academic views (e.g. hypotheses etc) on the extinction as the topic, which does not mean that we are presenting the views on the hypotheses as the topic. --Cold Season (talk) 17:57, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the questions do sound a little flippant. I actually meant them earnestly, but was trying not to run off at the keyboard, so my comment was a little too short to make sense.  I was thinking about how content could be distributed between articles titled "Neanderthal", "Neanderthal extinction", and "Neanderthal extinction hypotheses".  I doubt that there is enough information on the extinction aside from the various extinction hypotheses to justify a separate "Neanderthal extinction" article.  I also expect that any article on Neaderthal extinction would be primarily about the extinction hypotheses, and would be better titled "Neanderthal extinction hypotheses".  But I'm not an expert in the field, so I was leaving the possibility open that there might someday be an article titled "Neanderthal extinction".  Since it's not really applicable to the distribution of the current content, I probably could have saved the confusion and not gone into hypotheticals.--Wikimedes (talk) 19:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Not at all, they are pleasantly straightforward. I presumed that they were your thoughts rather than actual questions. Anyway... I find that having an article about strictly the hypotheses pointless; the article's scope is not about the hypotheses of the extinction, it's about the extinction itself. So the "if not" that I said above applies, because the hypotheses are the content used to present the topic (which is Neanderthal extinction) and not the topic of interest. --Cold Season (talk) 03:45, 1 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Support - per nom. Either the hypotheses are the sole information about the extinction, in which case "Neanderthal extinction" is the more concise, appropriate title, or else any additional information about the extinction should be added.  We certainly do not need separate articles about the extinction and the extinction hypotheses, unless the article about the extinction gets so large that it needs to be split. Rlendog (talk) 00:35, 1 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Support. The topic of this article is Neanderthal extinction.  The fact that it's largely devoted to various theories about how it happened is beside the point.  Ultimately, neither title is wrong, but the proposed title is more concise and the current title seems contrived.  --В²C ☎ 21:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Support rename to Neanderthal extinction tied to a rename of the section Neanderthal to Neanderthal. Their extinction is a good spinout of Neanderthal, but an article on the hypotheses is over-specific.  This spinout should cover the extinction generally.  Yes, add any additional information about the extinction to this article.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:17, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Anticipate herd movements hypothesis
I recall hearing in the 1990s about a theory that modern humans climbed hills and mountains to observe the movement of herds and anticipated where herds would be in the next few days, while Neanderthals did not do this, and this was enough of an advantage for modern humans to cause the extinction of Neanderthals. If there is any source for this theory, it should be mentioned in the article. —Anomalocaris (talk) 02:50, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I do not know of any source, and I do not see how there could be any evidence for such a theory. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:17, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Other eruptions

 * In "A string of major volcanic eruptions 40,000 years BP" in Neanderthal extinction, which were the other eruptions? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:29, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I see that this statement has been deleted. The connection to eruptions 39-40,000 years ago is presumably out of date as it now seems to be accepted that the extinction took place before that date.
 * The same applies to the claim that Neanderthals survived until a late date in Gibraltar and I suggest deleting the link to Neanderthals of Gibraltar
 * I am doubtful about the statement that the Neanderthals were nearly exterminated by a period of extreme cold - it is not stated when but 50,000 years ago according to the source. According to sources such as the Vostok Petit chart in Quaternary glaciation the period 50,000 years ago was not as extreme as the glaciation 160,000 year ago. The later glaciation may have been worse because - as Chris Stringer suggested in an email to me - their normal recourse in ice ages was to retreat south, but by 50,000 years ago their southern refuges had been occupied by modern humans. This would mean that the Neanderthal demise was ultimately due to modern human immigration. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:36, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Interesting! Thanks for this great info. I am also quite uneasy with the fact, that Neanderthals lived 250,000 years in Europe and survived probably a dozen or more interglacials and are all of a sudden confronted with extinction at the onset of a warming period. However, i just went through the article a few days ago for a cleanup, suggested to me by SuggestBot. I tried to be moderate, but the flood of conflicting publications is really hard to deal with.Wikirictor (talk) 10:06, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Extinction of the Neanderthals
A possible theory for the extinction of the Neanderthals was a pandemic involving one or more viruses. Probably it was due to the Poliovirus, causative agent of poliomyelitis (commonly known as polio), is a human enterovirus and member of the family of Picornaviridae.

Extinction due to Poliovirus
Does Neanderthal extinction begin around 40,000 years ago in the Paleolithic Europe, after anatomically modern humans had reached the continent with the Poliovirus? Poliomyelitis is highly contagious via the fecal-oral (intestinal source) and the oral-oral routes (oropharyngeal source), and in endemic areas, wild polioviruses can infect virtually the entire Homo sapiens or Neanderthals population. Currently the most likely scenario is that Neanderthals were a separate species from modern Homo sapiens and became extinct due to several Polymorphisms in immune pathways associate with the viral susceptibility of poliovirus. Among those paralyzed, more than 10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.

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Neanderthals made symbolic artefacts
New research shows that Neanderthals were indeed capable of producing art: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/science/neanderthals-cave-paintings-europe.html

It is not an art form they copied from Homo sapiens as earlier theories suggested. The research shows that cave art found in Spain is at least 64,000 years old and colourful shells that would have been worn as ornaments are between 115,000 and 120,000 years old. So the cave paintings were made 24,000 years before the Homo sapiens arrived in Europe from Africa and the shells 75,000-80,000 years before the Homo sapiens arrived in Europe.

Therefore, the claim in the article that the Neanderthals were incapable of making symbolic artefacts has been debunked. This also raises the question of the Neanderthals intelligence. Since they were capable of more abstract thinking than they have been given credit for, it is no longer safe to say that the Homo sapiens outwitted them and they wiped out the Neanderthals with sophisticated weaponry and warfare tactics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vivianvos (talk • contribs) 09:24, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Extinction by Last Ice Age 41.000 years ago. Complete switch of Earth Pole's and climate change
https://www.theverge.com/2015/4/23/8479243/human-neanderthal-protoaurignacian-teeth-study — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dewildewouter (talk • contribs) 23:31, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Date of Neanderthal extinction
I have viewed and seen sources saying that a few isolated Neanderthal groups may have still existed as recently as 27,000 years ago, the article indicates that Neanderthals became extinct some 40 or 39 thousand years ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.179.145.46 (talk) 21:41, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Recent dates are now considered disproved following improvements in radiocarbon dating. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:15, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Interbreeding Objectivity in Question
"Interbreeding can only account for a certain degree of Neanderthal population decrease. A homogeneous absorption of an entire species is a rather unrealistic idea. This would also be counter to strict versions of the Recent African Origin, since it would imply that at least part of the genome of Europeans would descend from Neanderthals, whose ancestors left Africa at least 350,000 years ago. " Doesn't seem to be supported by any citations or evidence, possible bias? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.211.185.214 (talk) 07:47, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Please update with: "Quantifying the potential causes of Neanderthal extinction: Abrupt climate change versus competition and interbreeding"
Could you please update the page to contain information on this study, included like so in 2020 in science:

A researcher reports that in a supercomputer model simulation a realistic extinction of the Neanderthal population can only be simulated when Homo sapiens is considerably more effective in exploiting scarce glacial food resources as compared to Neanderthals, with interbreeding and abrupt climate change only being minor contributors to their extinction.

I think it should be mentioned here shortly somewhere in section "Possible cause of extinction". If you see a problem with the item's content at or notability for 2020 in science please edit it.

Thank you.

--Prototyperspective (talk) 14:05, 23 July 2020 (UTC)


 * A theory based on a computer simulation needs comments from experts in the field before we add it to Wkipedia. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:12, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Interbreeding should be the favored hypothesis in the light of new evidence
I've explained this here on Quora. The links to the scientific papers is given there. The crucial part of the argument is not simply that interbreeding happened per the recent evidence, but also that Neanderthals were far more physiologically adapted to their lifestyle compared to Homo Sapiens. Hybrids born without birth defects would then do reasonably well in human societies, but hybrids in Neanderthal societies would not do well as they would lack the physical strength needed to stick to the Neanderthal lifestyle. Baby hybrids may have been more susceptible to the cold than Neanderthal babies, so child mortality of hybrids born in Neanderthal societies would likely have been higher. And because Neanderthals were less numerous than Homo Sapiens, the fraction of hybrids would have been larger in Neanderthal communities compared to human communities.

It's then likely that interbreeding would have led to a collapse of the Neanderthal lifestyle and culture, with the hybrids who lived in Neanderthal communities ending up joining human communities. Smitra0 (talk) 09:17, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Discussions on Quora are not considered reliable sources for Wikipedia. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:12, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, Quora is not a peer reviewed source, but I give links to the literature in the linked Quora post. Smitra0 (talk) 05:02, 3 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Assimilation should be a premier theory. It is know that early interbreeding with homo sapiens changed out both the mitochondrial DNA as well the Y-chromosome in Neanderthals to the ones from homo sapiens. That tells me that hybrids of both sexes were able to procreate and that well. The dominance of modern human can be explained by the difference in numbers. A big population meeting a small population. Assimilation could have occured over several thousand of years, as Neanderthals were living thousands of years beside modern humans.Jochum (talk) 21:13, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Technology
Difference in Technology between Neanderthals and contemporaneous "Cro-Magnon" is alluded to, but not described. It seems to me that some detail in this area is warranted. (Or linked to, if it is documented elsewhere.) Drsruli (talk) 07:47, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

really?
"The catastrophic impact of Eurasian viruses on Native American populations in the historical past offers us a sense of how modern humans may have affected hominin predecessor groups in Eurasia 40,000 years ago. Human and Neanderthal genomes and disease or parasite adaptations may give insight on this..."

How can you compare early human hunter-gatherers (the kind Neanderthals would've encountered) health with mid 15th century modern Europeans? The circumstances are completely different. European society at the time of first contact was rife with disease b/c they lived in crowded communities with NO sanitation or knowledge of microbes and epidemics amongst themselves were common. Isolated bands of hunter-gatherers don't live in teeming cities or crowded villages and therefore are less likely to be the source of major epidemics. They live in small groups. In addition, "native populations" of the Americas did not completely vanish despite being exposed to infectious diseases they had not encountered. 47.138.92.41 (talk) 10:35, 7 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Some native populations most certainly did completely vanish after being exposed to European diseases. Additionally, it wasn't just isolated bands of hunter gatherers being exposed to these diseases, it was major cities in South America that were living in equally crowded conditions.  The point of the comparison is that novel pathogens can greatly disrupt populations.  I don't see how modern humans potentially spreading novel pathogens to small homo n. groups with no immunity COULDN'T greatly reduce their populations. LarsTheFirst (talk) 04:10, 1 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I agree that it is very unlikely but it is not our views which count. It is one of theh theories put forward by reliable sources and so it has to be included. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)