Talk:Neanderthal

«Erroneously» Homo sapiens neanderthalensis ?

All the article, and even more the article Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans, describe interbreeding between Neanderthal man and modern man as a proved fact. If so, what is the reason (other than misplaced racism) for saying at the top of the article that placing them in a single species is «erroneous» ? Aren't species defined by the ability to interbreed and have fertile young (and genera by the ability to interbreed, but have sterile young, like the horse Equus ferus caballus and the donkey Equus africanus asinus, whose offsprings, the mule and the hinny, are sterile) ? If (as assumed by their placement in different species of a common genus) offspring of Neanderthal humans and modern humans was sterile, how come genes originating in Neanderthals have been found in the DNA of most modern people, as these articles repeatedly stress ? — Tonymec (talk) 16:52, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Species are not defined by the ability to have have fertile offspring. There are many cases of different species having fertile offspring, such as lions and tigers, which produce ligers and tigons. Dudley Miles (talk) 17:38, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

They do not, in fact, reproduce in the wild: "Like the liger, male tigons are sterile while the females are fertile." You really should have checked the article that you're quoting, Dudley. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:C22:A5AA:1A00:3D98:EA76:738:6684 (talk) 02:34, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, I thought that Linnean taxonomy defined (for sexual animals, at least) a genus as a set of beings capable of having common offspring, and a species as a set of beings within a common genus, and whose common offspring was fully fertile. What defines a separate species then ? — Tonymec (talk) 02:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

The section discusses evidence of hybrid incompatibility, not total sterility among all offspring Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 03:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I tried to resolve this by adding the word 'debated' in the 1st sentence of the article. People will notice and look it up here on the talk page. --77.188.115.73 (talk) 01:52, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Article needs rework, presents obsolete (and racist) pseudoscience

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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It should be clear that h. sapiens Neanderthalensis was wrongly conceived as its own species, so please stop stating otherwise. Pluto is not a planet anymore, and h. sapiens Neanderthalensis not a species. Tempora mutantur. 2A01:C22:A5AA:1A00:3D98:EA76:738:6684 (talk) 02:19, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

There are two facts:

1. Contemporary life sciences cannot (for reasonable aspects) agree on a single common definition of species, and anthropologists cannot agree on a convention to apply either definition to Neanderthals.
2. Neanderthals are a unique phylogenetic line that separated from the H. sapiens line, most probably with the Denisovans in a common branch of the evolutionary tree, and became independent only later. Due to the proximity of these three lines, there were individual cases of mutual crossing, which is evidenced by introgressions in the genomes of all three lines.

Let us not take as a basis some dogmas given by convention about species or subspecies, but let us concentrate in accordance with modern science on real phylogenetic relationships. Tempora mutantur. :-) Petr Karel (talk) 09:19, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

The majority of researchers continue to regard Neanderthals (in my view, correctly) as a separate species [1] [2], so this complaint is utterly meritless. Hemiauchenia (talk) 11:49, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Hemiauchenia, you're obviously recognizing that there exists a minority opinion on said topic. What would you propose to represent the fact (that we agree on) in the abstract of the article?

Thank you!

--77.188.115.73 (talk) 01:58, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

The current version in the lead that I wrote is fine. I don't think the dispute is prominent enough to be worth elaborating on at length in the opening section. This idea that "reproductive isolation" is key to defining species is something often repeated in school textbooks but in practice it's not really true. Many species that are generally regarded as distinct are not meaningfully reproductively isolated and can produce fertile offspring. A classic example would be grey wolves and coyotes. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:46, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Hemiauchenia,

thanks for updating the abstract! Let me quickly cite the Wikipedia article for Species:

"A species (pl.: species) is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction."

As this directly contradicts your statement, it would be great if you'd refrain from further editing this topic, or at least get outside advice, to ensure a neutral coverage of the change that's already happening to the field. This matter won't be decided on Wikipedia anyway, so please do not try to exert undue influence. This petty defense of 'accepted knowledge' is a needless waste of energy, when the 'accepted knowledge' obviously does not agree with reality anymore, as per new scientific discoveries.

I'm not an expert in this field, though. If there are proposals to re-define "Species" on something else than procreation, those should be linked, in order to be able to keep up the narrative that Neanderthals are a distinct species.

--77.183.64.48 (talk) 14:37, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a reliable source. As I said, many species that are generally regarded as separate can hybridize (e.g cattle and bison can interbreed with their fertile offspring being called beefalo). It is increasingly obvious that cross-species hybridization is pervasive across nature (e.g. [3])

Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:58, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP and an associated one User talk:77.188.115.73 from this talk page, a lot of personal attacks despite warnings. Doug Weller talk 16:26, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: They've moved over to Talk:Neanderthal extinction now. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:16, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Update based on recent research was reverted?

Hello,

My recent May 8th edit regarding research relating anatomically modern human ancestry in neanderthals ca. 250k years ago was reverted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1222952860&oldid=1222845592&title=Neanderthal

The other editor who removed my update, @Hemiauchenia, gave the reasoning that my update was already contained within the "Evolution" subsection, so there is no need to repeat. Upon further inspection, there was nothing in that section relating to the recent research I was citing. I'd like to request that my original edit (or some variation of it) is reinstated, as it is fairly recent (late 2023) and novel research of interest to the Neanderthal ancestry section. I hope this isn't inappropriate; I understand that the article is long and unwieldy. I've included this research on the Neanderthal genetics and Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans pages. Perhaps it is more appropriate for those pages than here? I am not sure. Youarelovedfool (talk) 06:40, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

The article is far too long. It is over 16,000 words compared with the recommended limit of 10,000. I think that the topic is covered in the 'Interbreeding with modern humans' section rather than the 'Evolution' section. In view of the excessive length of the main article I think that the new finding should only be added to the Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans article, which you have done. Dudley Miles (talk) 07:20, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. Thank you for clarifying. Youarelovedfool (talk) 00:07, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

This does not resolve the issue that interbreeding between species is not possible, so neanderthalensis is not a species.

'Old school' editors should consider themselves biased and refrain from editing the field. Tempora mutantur.

--77.188.115.73 (talk) 01:56, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Nice to see a Bob Dylan song quoted on this page.;-) Carlstak (talk) 01:35, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Cave discovery in France may explain why Neanderthals disappeared, scientists say

See [4]. Doug Weller talk 15:27, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Lead

The lead looks very, very long to me compared to other articles. Is it the case of "It's actually fine", "No one has cared enough to tag it" or "Don't over tag the article since it already has a general 'too long' tag"? AkiyamaKana (talk) 13:33, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Long articles tend to have long leads. :D But yeah, this one is a bit long compared to the rest of the body. If you can find a we to better summarize the article, have at! - UtherSRG (talk) 17:34, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Evolution paragraph one

Evolution paragraph one is kind of all over the place, but I wouldn't know what to do with it at the moment, this isn't my subject.FourLights (talk) 05:33, 10 November 2024 (UTC)