User:Nicolas Perrault III/List of Neanderthals

The following is an attempt at an exhaustive list of Neanderthal specimens. Sites are first ordered by country (by their westernmost site), then within countries by site west-to-east.

The sex is given when known. When in brackets, (♂) or (♀), the sex is presumed based on traits that tend to differ between males and females (e.g., bone robusticity). When not in brackets, ♂ or ♀, the sex has been inferred from associated pelvic remains, the only way of assessing the sex with virtual certainty. [♀] means that I haven't checked whether it's one or the other.

Note that no date younger than 40 ka is recognised as legitimate by prehistorians. Decontamination work from 2011 onwards has revealed that up to 70% of pre-2011 radiocarbon dates are likely contaminated with modern radiocarbon, yielding dates that appear too young. Here, all pre-2011 radiocarbon (but not TL or ESR) dates are square-bracketed, e.g., [40 ka]. Dates that appear younger than 40 ka (calibrated) are additionally marked by an asterisk, e.g., [39* ka], because as of 2017 no date this young is universally recognised as legitimate.

The MNI is the minimum number of identified specimens. Ideally, this number is evaluated by palaeoanthropologists and reported, in which case it appears out of brackets. When in brackets, e.g., (3), it refers to the minimum number of specimens I could identify in the literature. A palaeoanthropologist will sometimes report the "minimum number of human individuals" in a site where the only human bones identified are Neanderthal bones. This is not good enough: Because one cannot assume that undiagnostic human bones are from Neanderthals, to be included here out of brackets, the palaeoanthropologist must explicitly report the minimum number of Neanderthal individuals.

Number of rare monographies I ordered through interlibrary loans at five pounds a piece to compile parts of this list: 7.