Talk:Red Deer Cave people

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 March 2020 and 12 June 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dbece005. Peer reviewers: Alexmkid3.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:01, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Phrasing
I'm concerned some of the phrasing used by this article may be too close to that of this source. For example, compare "To make a convincing case for their new human, the study team will need genetic evidence" with "Genetic evidence is required to make a convincing case for a new species of human", or "Attempts to obtain DNA from the Red Deer Cave remains haven't been successful" with "Attempts to extract DNA from the Red Deer Cave remains have been unsuccessful". Nikkimaria (talk) 21:10, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Well spotted - it's far too easy to miss this sort of thing. Is my version better? (This has been on my watchlist almost since it was written but I haven't been following it closely). Dougweller (talk) 22:14, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I guess my paraphrasing was a bit too close to the original. Thanks for following up and making corrections. ~Amatulić (talk) 14:31, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Youngest?
As in "youngest known prehistoric population who do not resemble modern humans". The intent of that phrase is difficult to understand. Are they most recent? Did they die at a young age? It's just not clear as the lede should be. I see in the video that Curnoe is saying "young". I vote for "most recent" instead, if at all in the lede. Kortoso (talk) 00:02, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and fixed it. Hope it's better that way. Kortoso (talk) 23:05, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Fuerle
Richard D. Fuerle is not an acceptable source for this article. "The author is a retired patent attorney who lives on a small wildlife refuge on an island in upstate of New York. A perpetual student, he has degrees in math (BS), law (JD), economics (MA), physics (BA), and chemistry (BA)." http://menghusblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/richard-d-fuerle-erectus-walks-amongst-us.pdf Kortoso (talk) 23:39, 15 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Well spotted. I missed this when it was added by an IP last month. I've removed it. Dougweller (talk) 10:05, 16 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Now his blog is down. Kortoso (talk) 18:19, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Not all that unique
Curnoe refers to a similar find from Iwo Eleru in Nigeria dating from about 16,000 - 11,700 years ago. John Hawks mentions another similar find from Salkhit, Mongolia, dating from the late Pleistocene, both with surprisingly archaic features. Kortoso (talk) 19:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Thigh bone
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0143332
 * Abstract:
 * The number of Late Pleistocene hominin species and the timing of their extinction are issues receiving renewed attention following genomic evidence for interbreeding between the ancestors of some living humans and archaic taxa. Yet, major gaps in the fossil record and uncertainties surrounding the age of key fossils have meant that these questions remain poorly understood. Here we describe and compare a highly unusual femur from Late Pleistocene sediments at Maludong (Yunnan), Southwest China, recovered along with cranial remains that exhibit a mixture of anatomically modern human and archaic traits. Our studies show that the Maludong femur has affinities to archaic hominins, especially Lower Pleistocene femora. However, the scarcity of later Middle and Late Pleistocene archaic remains in East Asia makes an assessment of systematically relevant character states difficult, warranting caution in assigning the specimen to a species at this time. The Maludong fossil probably samples an archaic population that survived until around 14,000 years ago in the biogeographically complex region of Southwest China.

Maludong=Red Deer Cave Kortoso (talk) 17:34, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * More about this:
 * http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/bone-red-deer-cave-archaic-human-species-03523.html
 * Kortoso (talk) 17:43, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Maludong=Red Deer Cave, but is the latest discovery of Red Deer Cave people? As I read it, no. The original discovery was of cranial remains, exhibiting a mixture of archaic and modern traits, as stated above. The femur, though mixed with the crania, is described as a more archaic "Madulong hominim". Dudley Miles (talk) 21:31, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The sources are not as clear as they might be, but if they are found in the same cave, one would assume that they are part of the same assemblage. Hopefully we can find some clarification. For my part, I hope that we will see side-by-side comparisons of teeth from Maludong, Flores, Denisova, Sima de los Huesos, and classic H erectus and Neanderthal. Kortoso (talk) 18:17, 15 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Referring to Longlin vs Maludong, "Given their morphological similarity, close geographical proximity (<300 km apart) and young geological age (i.e., Pleistocene-Holocene transition), it seems likely that both samples belong to the same population."
 * Kortoso (talk) 18:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Dating
It's mysterious: They did not radio-carbon date any of the bones themselves, only the sediment that was deposited in the cranial cavity, presumably long as fossilization:
 * Radiocarbon dating of charcoal from sediment removed from within the endocranial cavity of LL 1 provided an age of 11,510±255 cal. yr BP (OZM369).

The flowstone in the cave was also dated, but that only provides the most recent possible date for any activity in the cave.
 * Three U-Th age determinations were attempted on ∼25 mg sub-samples of the flowstone attached to the LL 1 vault... Two of these were too contaminated with detrital Th from cave sediments to allow calculation of useable age estimates, but were able to be used to derive a robust estimate of initial 230Th/232Th activity in this contaminating phase (0.82±0.20). The remaining less-contaminated age determination has been corrected using this figure to provide an absolute age of 7.8±0.5 ka (UMB03650) for the flowstone... The flowstone must have formed after the skeleton was deposited, but its dating confirms the Pleistocene-Holocene transition age based on radiocarbon dating of charcoal.

This may be a similar dating problem to that which we see with the Homo floriensis find.

Curnoe says that his bones were "directly dated" but the proof has yet to be found.
 * A couple of months ago we published a new study of the Longlin or Laomaocao Cave specimen, which we had also placed in the Red Deer Cave people in 2012.


 * We're now treating it as part of a separate group, distinct from the bones from Red Deer Cave, or Maludong, and one that we now think is indeed very likely to be a hybrid. And direct dating on human bone now confirms that the specimen is only 10,500 years old

But his new study, "Possible Signatures of Hominin Hybridization from the Early Holocene of Southwest China" doesn't offer any clues about "direct dating" (which we assume means radiocarbon dating of the actual bones). And its not clear whether he's referring to Longlin or Maludong as being directly dated to 10,500 years old (and usually this is presented as a possible range rather than a hard date).

Kortoso (talk) 22:18, 14 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I do not think you can say that the "Possible signatures" paper does not give any clues about direct dating. The paper cites 67 refs, and the dating is presumably in one of them. On a brief check, the two points which seem to me clear is that Curnoe no longer thinks that LL1 is Red Deer Cave, and that it is too early to amend the Wiki article as studies are coming at a fast rate and it is not yet clear where they are going. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:27, 15 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Agreed, it is still early, since "Possible signatures" was pubbed in 2015.
 * Yet Curnoe's references mostly speak of other finds that he is suggesting might be similar to the RDC finds. None of them (& I've read them) supply data on the dating of the bones themselves.
 * Yes, he is considering LL to be a separate population from that of MD. It's an interesting set of finds and I am curious to see what comes of them. Kortoso (talk) 22:42, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Gathering pertinent references
Curnoe, D. et al. Human Remains from the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition of Southwest China Suggest a Complex Evolutionary History for East Asians Published: March 14, 2012 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031918
 * Dated the skull from Longlin. Discussed the Maludong find. Longlin (LL) is dated to 11,500 bp. Maludong (MLDG) direct dating was not possible due to lack of preserved collagen. Suggests that Maludong dated 17,830 - 13,290 bp

Ji, X., Wu, X. J., Wu, Y. & Liu, W. The temporal bony labyrinthine morphology of Homo Longlin 1 from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition of South China. Chinese Sci. Bull. 59, 3517–3525 10.1360/N972014-00653 (2014).
 * Not found. Gateway timeout etc.

Curnoe, D. et al. Possible Signatures of Hominin Hybridization from the Early Holocene of Southwest China. Sci. Rep. 5, 12408; doi: 10.1038/srep12408 (2015).
 * Talks about Longlin morphology in comparison to other finds.

Curnoe, D. et al. A Hominin Femur with Archaic Affinities from the Late Pleistocene of Southwest China Published: December 17, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0143332
 * Discusses morphology of MLDG, concludes that this is not AMH; looks like H erectus or H habilis. Speculates that it may be Denisovan. References Flores man.


 * Recently, he suggested that LL and MLDG should be considered to be completely different populations. I'm not sure where this was mentioned.

Here's his page; https://walkingontwofeet.net/ Kortoso (talk) 19:15, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Here we go. Apologies. I had quoted it before:
 * A couple of months ago we published a new study of the Longlin or Laomaocao Cave specimen, which we had also placed in the Red Deer Cave people in 2012.
 * We're now treating it as part of a separate group, distinct from the bones from Red Deer Cave, or Maludong, and one that we now think is indeed very likely to be a hybrid. And direct dating on human bone now confirms that the specimen is only 10,500 years old.

Based on that, at some point, I think this article will need to split into Longlin and Maludong sections. Kortoso (talk) 16:36, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I got an email answer from Dr Curnoe. Based on this conversation and published papers, I feel that the Maludong and the Longlin finds are definitely to be regarded separately. I recommend removing anything but tangential reference to Longlin for a couple of reasons:
 * 1. "Maludong" means Red Deer Cave. Let's not confuse Longlin with this.
 * 2. Longlin has been directly dated; furthermore it appears to be relatively modern, or archaic AMH, or possibly a hybrid.
 * 3. The find at Maludong has the notability in that it does not appear to be AMH, and may be pre-Homo erectus.


 * The bones at Maludong have been burnt and it's not likely that direct dating on these will be possible. Work is continuing on dating the Maludong sediments with the OSL method. Kortoso (talk) 20:27, 25 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Here's something from Curnoe's blog:

https://curnoe.com/2015/12/20/bone-suggests-red-deer-cave-people-a-mysterious-species-of-human/ Inter alias:
 * "A couple of months ago we published a new study of the Longlin or Laomaocao Cave specimen, which we had also placed in the Red Deer Cave people in 2012.


 * "We’re now treating it as part of a separate group, distinct from the bones from Red Deer Cave, or Maludong, and one that we now think is indeed very likely to be a hybrid. And direct dating on human bone now confirms that the specimen is only 10,500 years old."
 * Kortoso (talk) 20:46, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

taxobox removed
I was reverted without explanation when removing the taxobox. A second editor has removed the same. I hope that is the end of it. cygnis insignis 06:09, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It is not a named taxon, so it shouldn't have a taxobox. FunkMonk (talk) 08:55, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Genomic DNA results are in
Genomic DNA results on the specimen have now been published: poor recovery, but what they got showed the specimen to be modern human with low levels of Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture similar to what is seen in modern Asians. Notably, it is related to the East Asian (non-Siberian) component of the ancestry of Native Americans. This is going to require significant changes in focus regarding identity/classification - addition of the new results and toning down the emphasis currently given the other alternatives, and I am not up to that task. | Original article; | Secondary summary. Agricolae (talk) 21:10, 14 July 2022 (UTC)