Remains of nine Neanderthals found in cave south of Rome

The article explains that tartar has been tested - that in this instance is the same thing as calculus https://johnrcarsondds.com/plaque-tartar-calculus-difference...

The answer is that species is a fuzzy concept defined a long time ago: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/are-neanderthals-same-species...

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-Homo-sapiens-and-Neanderthals-...

The short answer is that it is far from a settled question - many people say “Homo sapiens neanderthalis” as the proposed subspecies. The fact that modern humans and Neanderthals crossbred and apparently had viable offspring is strong evidence for this understanding (but not necessarily conclusive; sometimes mules are fertile).

That said, Neanderthals rapidly went extinct after modern human contact, and are vastly genetically different from us compared to any two randomly chosen modern humans. They do not appear to have formed especially sophisticated technology or formed any society as complex as a simple tribe. So there are still meaningful biological differences between Neanderthals and modern humans that don’t require the delicate machinery of anthropology to understand.

Note: a difficulty here is that “species” is actually a very fuzzy concept, one that Nature itself doesn’t seem to care much about. “Subspecies” is even more vague.

Outside of modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) there had been only one other conclusively identified “race”[1] of Homo sapiens, the Homo sapiens idaltu. Perhaps there will be more evidence to put Neanderthals in there as well, but the consensus is that they were a separate but closely-related species.

[1] “Race” in the scientific sense as a synonym for subspecies, not the social sense of “ethnic group, but with more negative overtones.”

So, the root problem here is that species are not defined by crisp barriers, particularly when we're talking about early homonids. So the old elementary school definition of species as reproductive compatibility is just one thing considered today in choosing where to put the line.

Other considerations are morphology and genetic drift. By both those measures Neanderthals are different enough to justify being a separate species, though there is some debate. Take a look at this diagram from wiki and you can see that the evolution of humans was not some sort of clean branching tree, but a messy web including substantial horizontal gene transfer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_human_evolution#/media/...

Race is a social construct with a tenuous connection to underlying biology.

Because 19th century English majors were masquerading as scientists.

Race is a colloquial term that references a subset of a species. The exact definition of race is very fuzzy due to historical, political, and sociological implications.

Looking at the taxonomy structure in biology[1], I think Neanderthals should be considered an independent species.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomic_rank

No expert, but Neanderthal brain size is reportedly larger than Homoerectus (1400 cm^3 versus < 1200 cm^3).

Very interesting discussion. The question of the species as a fuzzy concept goes back to Darwin himself: “From these remarks it will be seen that I look at the term species, as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms”. Darwin’s statement can be understood today because if you reason in terms of a conceptual discontinuity between species you allow creationists of any kind to imply the intervention of a divinity (something that still happens today); and also: how would you cope with species in statu nascendi?

Notwithstanding that, a sharp criterion that consent us to put a sound demarcation is the issue of “genome incompatibility”: once a genetic barrier has been established between the individuals of any two populations, as the (possible) hybrids are not viable or are sterile, we know that it cannot be reversed by natural means, and the genetic pools of those populations will diverge more and more with time. Therefore, they should be considered as separate species.

What about Neanderthals and sapiens? It seems that hybridization occurred when the sapiens who invaded Europe some 50,000 years ago encountered the Neanderthals, who had remained separated from the common ancestor for at least 500,000 years (I do not consider this as an established fact, as it is possible, however improbable, that the segments of Neanderthal’s genome we observe in today Europeans are remnants of common ancestry, which have been preserved in Europeans and lost from today Africans by selection or drift). This would be a strong argument in favor of them being a single species. I personally prefer this view also because it helps to support a less “supremacist” view of our biological roots, showing that not only is our species subdivided in phenotypically recognizable populations, but that it was once subdivided in morphologically distinct subspecies.

Fossilization is rare. It's as simple as that.

Looking at NESPOS, it seems like there have been minor discoveries (mandibles) in 2002:

https://www.nespos.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=29887333

https://www.nespos.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=29887335

> Is there someone who's familiar with archeology who can explain how?

Lack of funding, lack of opportunity, ill-luck, the site might be large as well so if the fossils were not obviously visible it can take a long time to find them, especially as you'd want to be very careful in order to avoid both damaging fossils and damaging (and possibly bringing down) the cave itself.

They could have been ill or mostly elderly - in fact that seems quite probable. And we don’t know much about Neanderthal behavior but they may have been less able to outwit/intimidate hyenas than modern humans.

That said, if “pack” means 50 hyenas, 10 humans with primitive spears could quickly run into trouble. In the wild hyena packs can be as large as 100.

that’s not what they say it happened. The human remains accumulated there over time.

From the article:

> Experts believe the individuals lived in different time periods. Some bones could be as old as 50,000 to 68,000 years, whereas the most ancient remains are believed to be 100,000 years old.

A misconception about Hyenas is that they are primarily scavengers. They are not -- they are hunters, and pretty aggressive at that. I read more than once that the traditional relationship between lions and hyenas as popular culture has it is actually backwards: hyenas mostly hunt, and lions mostly steal their kills.

Also, a single lion (or two) facing a pack of hyenas is in dire peril. Hyenas are clever, strong and dangerous. There are YouTube videos about this.

It took thousands of years to make them nine. The bones are from different periods.

Hyenas are notorious for being assholes

But any carnivorous pack animal is just an Alpha's decision to attack away from being a problem. The scarcer food gets, the more riskier sources they'll pursue.

If you read the article, you will see that the individuals were dragged into the cave over a span of tens of thousands of years. They were not hunted en-masse.

Aren't all Europeans?

23andMe also thanks for your data

And thank you random citizen, for offering the DNA of yours and your family + decedents to all insurance companies out there.

Snap I wonder how closely we are related?

The sheep romance dialog is hysterically funny. It was a Roman Catholic priest that was driven by Benigni's character, however.