Talk:Neanderthal extinction hypotheses

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Some recent genetic research has pointed toward the possibility that the gene responsible for red-hair and freckles in modern Europeans had Neanderthal origins

Sources for this?

I, too, would be interested in knowing where this came from. It sounds too much to me like something you would say if you wanted to tease a redhead or a freckly person. --Hazey Jane 22:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

this bbc article talks about neandertal's and red hair. It says it's not likely that the gene in humans came from neandertals [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2975862.stm ]

Had they rufosity or not, it's quite unlikely that we inherited anything from Neanderthals, as they weren't our ancestors. --Anshelm '77 03:38, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Don't be so sure! As with almost anything in human evolutionary studies, this idea is always in flux. For example, see the recent discussion of possible genes "shared" in some way by Neandertals and "our ancestors" [1]. GwenW 04:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Typo in title?

The title has "Neandertals", but the article has "Neanderthals" (notice the H missing in the title). How does one rename articles? --142.239.254.20 08:49, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Title is ok, both spellings are accepted (see Neandertals) --193.206.170.151 23:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

but shouldn't it be spelled the same throughout the article? Mapetite526 20:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Homo heidelbergensis

If Homo heidelbergensis is the ancestor of Homo neanderthalensis, then it's very unlikely that it's the ancestor of modern man too. Homo heidelbergensis was found in Europe. Modern man (Homo sapiens) is now believed to have evolved in Africa and since have come to Europe in a second wave. Wikiklaas 00:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

hi, many (English) references are now available on fr:Homme de Néandertal. -- 120


[edit] new data from Gibraltar

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060913.wneanAM0913/BNStory/Science/home

Neandertals have been around up to 24,000 years ago, longer than was thought ebfore.--Sonjaaa 19:14, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Rapid Extinction

The counter argument to Diamond's genocide/disease hypothesis provides no source and sounds suspiciously like a wikieditors opinion of Diamond argument. This needs to be sourced with a notable commentary who has criticised Diamond in order to avoid being chopped out of the article. Ashmoo 03:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Just removed:

"Furthermore, the nomadic Eurasian populations such as the Mongols did not get wiped out by the diseases of the agriculturalist societies they invaded and took over, like China and eastern Europe."

Didn't the Mongols have their own large animals, horses? More importantly, they were not separated by an ocean from the areas they invaded, so the exposure was not as "sudden." They had more time to build up resistance by gradual titration, or some such idea.

With that in mind, the removed sentence does not really add to the article, IMO, 67.187.127.174 (talk) 16:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User:Weirdoinventor edits

Can someone check User:Weirdoinventor's contributions to this article? Most of it (if not all of it) are not encyclopedic, and needs to be removed, or, if it is salvageable, needs to be wikified. --Carioca 04:59, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hybridization hypothesis

it appears that this is claimed purely on fossil evidence, essentially by Erik Trinkaus and a handful of others. Genetic evidence makes this very, very unlikely, although it can of course never rule it out entirely (it may be that Neanderthals were hybridized into H. sapiens, and the hybridized line then died out, leaving no modern descendants. This would sort of defeat the point of the hypothesis as explaining the disappearance of H. neanderthalensis, because it would be even more difficult to explain the extinction of the successfully hybridized line. Nevertheless, there remains some chance of yet discovering genetic traces (this is a hypothesis that can be proven, but never disproven):

Although most evidence argues against Neandertals interbreeding with early humans, the sample size is still too low to be definitive, says molecular archaeologist Carney Matheson of Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada. "It's important to remember that mtDNA, passed on from mother to child, represents only half the story of parental lineage," he notes. The contribution of male Neandertals breeding with humans would not be detected in mtDNA. "Until our technology advances to the point to where we can recover nuclear DNA for analysis, the issue of interbreeding will remain open," says Matheson.[2]

i.e., it is possible that there remain trances of Neanderthal genome in modern population, but neither a pure male nor a pure female line survives. This will be extremely difficult to prove or disprove. dab (𒁳) 14:37, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Delete this article?

This article WP:FORKs information already dealt with in the Neanderthal article and basically represents just one point of view. While the Neandertal article is up to date with recent articles and summarizes the actual state of the debate, this article needs a complete overhaul to cope with recent developments. Here, the extinction of Neanderthal is taken for granted, while it is still hotly debated. This is not conform WP:NPOV policy. If the intention is to describe Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal interaction, than please do so - and find out even the advent of Cro Magnon in Europe before 30000 kya is contested. For all of this the article should be reorganised and rewritten completely, or nominated for deletion. What will it be? Rokus01 (talk) 16:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

If it's completely dealt with in the Neanderthal article, why not just redirect there? WLU (talk) 01:02, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
it isn't. this is a valid sub-article. WP:POINT suggestion (see user's contributions). dab (𒁳) 15:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

It would be a valid sub-article, if:

  1. it would establish proven Neanderthal-Cro Magnon interaction on the first place
  2. it would not be a WP:FORK from Neanderthal that basically tend to forward the single point of view against interbreeding
  3. it would be confirm WP:NPOV policy to represent multiple points of view
  4. it would give valuable information on the subject other than basically stating there was no interaction, only extinction.

Now to come forward with some WP:POINT policy in order to dodge the issue I raise, is a bit like a silly WP:GAME isn't it? To keep in line with WP:TALK you should explain why this is a valid sub-article the way it is. Rokus01 (talk) 22:24, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I never said it should remain "the way it is". It obviously should be improved. If you have any valid points to raise, do it. I know you are here because of Neanderthal H. sapiens interbreeding (you want there to have been interbreeding. Presumably to account for your superior Nordwestblock/Dutch race that gave rise to civilization etc.). This is indeed the right place for the interbreeding debate. That is, following actual research, not racialist speculation. As it happens, there is no evidence indicating that there was any interbreeding. If there was any evidence, this would be the place to report it. dab (𒁳) 19:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Apart from your denigrating way of communicating and extrapolating against WP:NPA and WP:AGF that obviously does not fit an administrator; why do you think again it is of any interest what you think about the interbreeding question or evidence? The valid point I raised and keep raising is the article should reflect the current debate on this issue, and not just what happens to be the POV of an administrator on the loose. You being such a great self-proclaimed merger; what keeps you from merging this very article that severely lags behind and does not give any additional information to what we already know from Neanderthal? I am very interested to such "actual research" on evidence of interaction, still all I can see here is mere speculation and obsolete concepts. You still did not comply to WP:TALK to answer my inquiry how this article could be saved, or otherwise why it should be saved. I would save it myself if I knew of any sourced evidence of interaction. So far there is not any evidence or indication whatsoever to who or what belongs the Aurignacian, and all we know is anatomically modern humans were present since Gravette, on locations very separate from late Neanderthal. Hardly a sound base for an article, or rather some opinions on interaction. Rokus01 (talk) 21:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I propose a combination of:

  • a redirect to Neanderthal of Neandertal interaction with Cro-Magnons, since this article does not seem to intend adding any valuable information on the interaction-subject about if, when, where and how the two human branches interacted
  • a full move of the content to a new subject called Neanderthal extinction hypotheses, since this is where the article is really all about
  • an overhaul of the content in order to reduce the redundancy with the main article.

Rokus01 (talk) 21:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)\

I like Rokus01's idea. --Blue Tie (talk) 00:43, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I like Neanderthal extinction hypotheses as well. Such an article should address most of the concerns above. GwenW (talk) 09:29, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with that. This article is in fact about Neanderthal extinction, so we can and should move it to an appropriate title. dab (𒁳) 07:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)