Talk:Neanderthal

Missing date

The article gives an extinction date, when it has turned out that they did not technically go extinct, but were subsumed into Homo Sapiens. But it fails to give the date when they appeared as a species. FatBear1 (talk) 15:52, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Fire

I apologise, as I have limited knowledge of page editing or conventions, but I should add that the sections referring to fire should perhaps be updated due to recent discoveries. It was reported in December 2025 that it has been found that Neanderthals were deliberately creating fire 400,000 years ago in Norfolk, England. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/science/archaeology-humans-neanderthals-fire.html Peterthorn1984 (talk) 17:42, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Well those weren't "Neanderthals" in the strict sense, the actual study itself never attempts a species attribution because no fossils were found at the site. The Barnham sites seems to record the local transition from "Clactonian" (no hand axes) to Acheulean (hand axes) across the Anglian/Hoxnian, and we get the burned clay and pyrite in the younger layer. But just because Acheulean-style tools were found in proximity to pyrite and heated clay doesn't necessarily mean firestarting technology was ever widely used or persisted around Europe for hundreds of thousands of years by the time "Neanderthals" appear in the fossil record Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 21:07, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Kizil-Koba and Kiik-Koba Error

I've not done much in terms of page editing or forum posts, but I was noticed something when working on a project in my class about Neanderthal grave goods. In the Burials and religion section, I noticed there was an image of engraved flint cited to be from a grave found in Kiik-Koba, Crimea. The link on Kiik-Koba however doesn't bring you to the Wikipedia page for Kiik-Koba (page doesn't exist in English). Instead, it brings you to the page for Kizil-Koba (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizil-Koba_culture), a different culture entirely. I think this is in error because, even though there is no page for Kiik-Koba on English Wikipedia, there is a page for German Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiik-Koba) and other language Wikis. The pages look entirely different and the German webpage seems more relevant to the image displayed on the Neanderthal page. Figured I'd post it here since I didn't see any comments about it. Thanks, Cereal Seagull (talk) 18:42, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I changed it to a red link. Ruslik_Zero 20:29, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Earliest Date of Emergence

There seems to be considerable debate around when Neanderthals first emerged.

Previously, there were attempts to place an unsourced and dubious date of 130,000 years ago on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neanderthal&oldid=1286961318 Luckily, these attempts were shutdown. However, if we are to make a distinction between Early Neanderthals (430,000) and late Neanderthals (100,000-35,000) this can be mentioned on the Wikipedia page whilst still keeping the date of 430,000.

The census, with debate, is that what we would call a Neanderthal emerged c. 430,000 years ago. Not 240,000.

I will not edit the Neanderthal page, but I believe with discussion we can reflect the earlier date on the page.

This will be in line with numerous other Wikipedia pages that state Homo Neanderthal emerged far earlier than 240,000 years ago. Hayden371 (talk) 10:53, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

430,000 year old specimens like from the Sima de los Huesos are not called "Early Neanderthal" by anyone. This was discussed in Talk:Neanderthal/Archive 7#Recent edit 2 (which didn't actually conclude, I admit) but do read through that first Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 22:00, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

is the more relevant and recent (2025) discussion. Ultimately, there appears to be a degree of abritraryness about where the line is drawn about when "true" Neanderthals, rather than merely Neanderthal line hominins, emerged, and thus the answer to this question is subjective. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:06, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

The fact that the Sima de los Huesos hominins have been found to be genetically of the Neanderthal line should probably be mentioned in the evolution section. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:21, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Either Early Neanderthals or members of a population ancestral to Neanderthals  Tewdar  23:05, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply, Dunkleosteus77. And thank you for linking me the previous talk page!

I used the terms Early Neanderthal, because this is the current accepted term used by the Natural History Museum of Great Britain. It is also used on the Wikipedia page for Neanderthals!

"The first recognisable "early Neanderthals" show up in the fossil record by the end of Marine Isotope Stage 7 (beginning roughly 243,000 years ago) and give way to "classic" or "late Neanderthals" by the end of Marine Isotope Stage 5e."

I do appreciate that the term is not a scientific one, but it seems acceptable enough to be used when discussing the evolutionary differences between Neanderthals from 400,000 years ago and 40,000 to a mainstream audience.

I forgot to add, that as it currently stands the page for Homo Sapiens claim that they emerged 300,000 years ago, putting them before Neanderthals. This claim, I contest. Neanderthals emerged before according to many metrics.

Thank you again for your response! Hayden371 (talk) 23:06, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes that date for modern humans cites the Jebel Irhoud site which, while popular in media, I wouldn't say is universally accepted in academia (see https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07426-4_1). Feel free to correct me but when researchers talk about European specimens between MIS 12 and 7 they aren't describing them as specifically neanderthalensis (the scope of this article) but rather on the Neanderthal lineage or heidelbergensis or do not comment on species attribution. Consider #Fire where species attribution was not given. The classification of Middle Pleistocene humans is extremely vague because of the species problem / at what point do we draw a line that this is no longer modern or Neanderthal; and I've tried portraying this in the Evolution section with Neanderthalization is a series of population crashes and losses of genetic/physiological diversity. In other words, from what the sources I've seen say, people start saying Neanderthal as a noun instead of an adjective when its younger than MIS 7 Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 01:45, 5 May 2026 (UTC)