Case Studies in Earth & Environmental Science Journalism

The Neanderthal Extinction.

Presented by: Victoria Kaufman and Laura Wright

• Jump down to Reading List
• Jump down to Neanderthal Extinction
  • Background Information
  • Techinical Articles

Questions to Ponder and Discuss

• Where and when was the first Neanderthal found? When do scientists believe Neanderthals first appeared on Earth? For how long were they around and when are they believed to have disappeared?
• When did Cro-Magnon first appear on Earth? Was there overlap with the time that Neanderthal was alive?
• Why do you think the controversy over the extinction of the Neanderthals is important?
• What are the different points of view regarding the extinction?
• What evidence supports Neanderthal's classification as Homo neanderthalensis?
• What are the morphological differences between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon (essentially modern man)? Similarities?
• What are some of the possible reasons given for Neanderthal extinction? Compare the Times (London), Jan. 1997; The Boston Globe, Nov. 2, 1998; The Washington Post, May 30, 1999; The Toronto Star, Oct. 17, 1999.
• How does the idea of an ecological niche come into play?
• The article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle refers to the scientific paper published in Cell. Why was this paper considered so pivotal in the Neanderthal debate?
• In the second to last paragraph of the article from The Times, Jan. 2, 1997, there is a statement that would be hotly debated by Erik Trinkaus. Why?
• What was found in Portugal in the winter of 1998 and why was it so important to the Neanderthal extinction debate?
• What artifacts led to the belief that there was interaction between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon? What was the scientific evidence that supported interaction?
• "Adaptation to specific conditions is a passport to extinction." Why or why not would this be so?
• Think about the theory suggested in Science Frontiers (July 1982). Do any other articles support this idea?
• This question is significant not only in the debate over the Neanderthal extinction, but also in ongoing debates throughout the field of paleoanthropology. Think about the variations in modern man (facial structure, physical stature, different cultures). How do you think this applies to taxonomy and classifying fossils, especially in the case of human origins?

Readings

Background information: Neanderthal Extinction.

Stringer, Christopher, Gamble, Clive, 1993. The Fate of the Neanderthals. In: In Search of the Neanderthals. Thames and Hudson Ltd, London, England, pp.179-194.

Tattersall, Ian, 1995. The Last Neanderthal. In: The Last Neanderthal: the rise, success, and mysterious extinction of our closest human relatives. Macmillan, Inc., New York, NY, pp.8-9, 198-203.

Scientific Papers and Reports: Neanderthal Extinction.

Jelinek, Jan, 1969. Neanderthal Man and Homo Sapiens in Central and Eastern Europe. Current Anthropology, Vol. 10, Number 5. pp.475-503.

Trinkaus, Erik, 1986. The Neanderthals and Modern Human Origins, Annual Review of Anthropology, 15:193-218.

Krings, Matthias, Stone, Anne, Schmitz, Ralf W., Krainitzki, Heike, Stoneking, Mark, and Paabo, Svante, July 11, 1997. Neanderthal DNA Sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans, Cell, Vol. 90, 19-30.

Bahn, Paul G., 1998. Archaeology: Neanderthals emancipated, Nature, 394. 719-721.

Dean, David, Hublin, Jean-Jacques, Holloway, Ralph, Ziegler, Reinhard, May 1998. On the phylogenetic position of the pre-Neanderthal specimen from Reilingen, Germany, Journal of Human Evolution, 34, 486-488.

Flores, J.C., 1998. A Mathematical Model for Neanderthal Extinction, J. Theoretical Biology, 191, 295-298.

Holden, Constance, January, 1999. Ancient Child Uncovered in Portugal, Science, Volume 283, Number 5399, p.169.

Duarte, Cidalia, Mauricio, Joao, Pettitt, Paul B., Souto, Pedro, Trinkaus, Erik, van der Plight, Hans, and Zilhao, Joao, June1999, The early Upper Paleolithic human skeleton from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal) and modern human emergence in Iberia, Proceedings National Academy of Sciences, USA, Vol. 96, pp. 7604-7609.

Random Samples, 1999. Making Neanderthals Part of the Family, April 1999. Volume 284, Number 5415. Patrimony Gets Ugly, July 1999,Volume 285, Number 5425. Polite Disagreement, July 1999, Volume 285, Number 5432.

Ponce de Leon, Marcia, Zollikofer, Christoph, P.E., August 2001. Neanderthal cranial ontogeny and its implications for the late hominid diversity, Nature, 412:534-537.

Balter, Michael, September 2001. What - or Who - Did in the Neanderthals? Science, Vol 293, pp. 1980-1981.

Stringer, Chris, Davies, William, October 2001, Archaeology: Those elusive Neanderthals, Nature, 413, 701-792.

Return to Case Studies

Return to E&ESJ Home Page