The literature

Which article cites which source.  This review serves three articles split from one draft.  Neanderthals cites carter-2010b, chen-2020, cuozzo-1998, gargett-1999, green-2010, higham-2014, hoffmann-2018, hoffmann-2018b, hublin-2020, jaubert-2016, jordan-2024, line-2019, lubenow-2004, mendez-2016, meyer-2012b, meyer-2016, petr-2020, pomeroy-2020, ponsbranchu-2022, prufer-2014, prufer-2017, reich-2010, rendu-2014, sankararaman-2014, sankararaman-2016, slimak-2018, slimak-2022, slon-2017, smith-2010, thomas-2014d, white-2020;  the 2026-10-27 strengthening review added brown-1992, carter-2021b, fu-2015, green-1890, gunz-2019, hajdinjak-2021, hoffmann-2018c, neubauer-2018, radovcic-2015, ross-2023 and slon-2018.  Denisovans cites green-2010, line-2019, meyer-2012b, petr-2020, posth-2017, prufer-2014, reich-2010, slon-2018.  Archaic Admixture cites carter-2010b, chen-2020, green-2010, lubenow-2004, mendez-2016, meyer-2012b, prufer-2017, reich-2010, sankararaman-2014, sankararaman-2016.

This page exists so that nobody has to take the article on trust.  Every source it rests on is listed here with what it actually measured, who wrote it, and which way it cuts.

It is deliberately not a reading list of things that agree with this site.  The strongest genetic evidence against the one-kind reading, the X-chromosome and testis-gene depletion in Sankararaman 2014 and 2016, sits inside the same papers the creationist side cites for interbreeding, and it is tagged here by what it shows.  The creationist treatments are tagged the same way, and two of them are tagged refuted on specific points because the sources they name do not support them.

How to read an entry

Measurement or model.  A count of fixed amino-acid differences is an observation.  A split date from a substitution clock is a model, and it inherits the mutation rate assumed in it.  Both are useful and they are not the same kind of thing.

Direction.  Assigned by what the source shows, not by what its author believes.

Verified.  Whether this project read the text directly (full), only its abstract (abstract), or only through another source that quotes it (via).  Nothing is quoted in the main article unless it is marked full or abstract.

Field definitions

Coverage and its limits, stated plainly.  Thirty sources from one dossier (research/archaic-humans.md), and eleven more from the 2026-10-27 strengthening review (research/strengthen-2026-10-27.md).  Four load-bearing mainstream papers are cited from their complete published abstracts because no open copy of the body could be reached:  Hoffmann 2018, Slimak 2018, Jaubert 2016 and Higham 2014.  Petr 2020, the Y-chromosome dataset Jordan re-analysed, was not obtained at all and is the top gap.  The mtDNA branch-length sources are not listed here;  they belong to the Mitochondrial Eve article.

The genomes

A draft sequence of the Neandertal genome

Green, Richard E., et al. and Svante Pääbo.  Science 328(5979):710–722, 2010.  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1188021

camp: mainstream topic: genomes method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: 5.3 Gb of sequence from three Vindija bones;  1 to 4 percent Neanderthal ancestry in non-Africans;  78 fixed amino-acid changes;  autosomal divergence 12.7 percent of the way back to the human-chimpanzee ancestor, converted to 825,000 years only by assuming 6.5 million years for that ancestor.

The paper that established interbreeding.  For the young-earth side it is the strongest single paper in the corpus:  fertile descendants alive today, and a protein-coding gap of 78 changes.  Against it, the relative divergence figure does not go away when the calibration is dropped, and nobody on the creationist side has computed what nuclear rate would put it inside a few thousand years.  Read from the PMC author manuscript, which carries no printed page numbers;  locators are sections.

Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia

Reich, David, et al. and Svante Pääbo.  Nature 468(7327):1053–1060, 2010.  https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09710

camp: mainstream topic: genomes method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: finger bone at 1.9-fold coverage;  mtDNA diverging about a million years back, twice the Neanderthal depth;  nuclear genome a sister group of Neanderthals;  4 to 6 percent Denisovan ancestry in Melanesians.

The paper that named the Denisovans.  Its mtDNA-versus-nuclear conflict is worth pressing:  one molecule gave the wrong tree and the field explained it afterward.  The nuclear population divergence is still far outside any biblical timeline.  PMC author manuscript.

A high-coverage genome sequence from an archaic Denisovan individual

Meyer, Matthias, et al. and Svante Pääbo.  Science 338(6104):222–226, 2012.  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1224344

camp: mainstream topic: genomes method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: 31-fold coverage;  12 reads spanning the chromosome 2 fusion junction and none in chimpanzees or bonobos;  heterozygosity 0.022 percent with no long runs of homozygosity;  260 fixed amino-acid changes;  population divergence 170,000 to 700,000 years, widened on purpose to span the plausible mutation rates.

The one line most useful to the one-kind reading in the whole archaic literature is here:  a karyotype difference "would likely have reduced the fertility" of hybrids, and there was none.  Do not inflate the 12 reads into an assembly across the junction;  the paper does not.  Publisher PDF, two-column, pages anchored by page tokens and figure captions.

The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains

Prüfer, Kay, et al. and Svante Pääbo.  Nature 505(7481):43–49, 2014.  https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12886

camp: mainstream topic: genomes method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: 52-fold coverage;  heterozygosity 22 to 30 percent of a non-African's;  parents close kin;  96 fixed amino-acid changes in 87 proteins;  Table 1 split dates under two calibrations, 190,000 to 236,000 years for Neanderthal-Denisovan under the fast rate and 381,000 to 473,000 under the trio-measured rate.

The paper that supplies the creationist side's best-known talking point, the inbred Altai individual, and its hardest number, the archaic-modern split, in one document.  Note a correction made while writing:  the research dossier's first draft labelled the two calibration columns backwards;  the extraction was re-read and the faster rate gives the younger dates, as it must.  The smallest number in the table is 190,000 years.  PMC author-manuscript text.

A high-coverage Neandertal genome from Vindija Cave in Croatia

Prüfer, Kay, et al. and Svante Pääbo.  Science 358(6363):655–658, 2017.  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao1887

camp: mainstream topic: genomes method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: 30-fold coverage;  contamination 0.18 to 0.23 percent;  1.8 to 2.6 percent Neanderthal ancestry outside Oceania;  effective population size about 3,000;  almost no long runs of homozygosity.

Raises the admixture figure, which helps the one-kind case, and removes the impression that all Neanderthals were products of close-kin mating.  The long-term effective population size of 3,000 is a number a post-Babel founder group has to reproduce.  PMC author manuscript.

Admixture and its limits

The genome of the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father

Slon, Viviane, et al. and Svante Pääbo.  Nature 561(7721):113–116, 2018.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0455-x

camp: mainstream topic: admixture method: measurement direction: supports verified: full

Key figures: Denisova 11, at least 13 years old at death;  43.5 percent of fragment pairs split one to each genome, against 25 percent for an equilibrium population;  a first-generation hybrid.

Two populations said to have separated more than 390,000 years earlier produced a child who lived to her teens.  Print the limits with it:  nothing is known about her own fertility, and the paper raises reduced hybrid fitness as one reason so few such individuals turn up.  Europe PMC XML.

An early modern human from Romania with a recent Neanderthal ancestor

Fu, Qiaomei, et al. and Svante Pääbo.  Nature 524(7564):216–219, 2015.  https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14558  Library key fu-2015.

camp: mainstream topic: admixture method: measurement direction: supports verified: full

Key figures: Oase 1 jaw, 37,000 to 42,000 years on the conventional scale;  6 to 9 percent Neanderthal DNA against 1 to 3 percent in living Eurasians;  three Neanderthal segments over 50 cM, so a Neanderthal ancestor four to six generations back;  no detectable descendants in later Europeans.

The cleanest single case of a modern human with a Neanderthal great-great-grandparent.  It supports interfertility at the scale of a family.  The limit:  Oase 1's population left no measurable trace in later Europe, which a skeptic can read alongside the X-chromosome depletion.  Europe PMC author manuscript (PMC4537386), full-text XML.

Initial Upper Palaeolithic humans in Europe had recent Neanderthal ancestry

Hajdinjak, Mateja, et al. and Svante Pääbo.  Nature 592(7853):253–257, 2021.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03335-3  Library key hajdinjak-2021.

camp: mainstream topic: admixture method: measurement direction: supports verified: full

Key figures: three Bacho Kiro modern humans, 45,930 to 42,580 years on the conventional scale;  3.8, 3.0 and 3.4 percent Neanderthal DNA;  most recent Neanderthal ancestor under six generations back for F6-620 and about seven for CC7-335 and BB7-240 (upper bounds ten and seventeen);  Oase 1 re-estimated at 3.9 generations in Extended Data Table 2.

With Fu 2015 and Slon 2018 it gives five sequenced individuals with a cross within about seven generations.  The authors read it as evidence that mixing "could have been common".  Europe PMC author manuscript (PMC8026394), full-text XML.

The genomic landscape of Neanderthal ancestry in present-day humans

Sankararaman, Sriram, et al. and David Reich.  Nature 507(7492):354–357, 2014.  https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12961

camp: mainstream topic: incompatibility method: measurement direction: undercuts verified: full

Key figures: 1.38 percent in East Asians, 1.15 percent in Europeans, 0.08 percent in the Luhya;  five-fold depletion on the X chromosome;  depletion in testis-expressed genes;  enrichment in keratin genes.

The sharpest genetic objection to the one-kind reading.  X-linked and testis-gene depletion are the classic markers of hybrid male sterility.  The creationist answer, that partial incompatibility is a matter of degree, needs a comparative case nobody has supplied.  Europe PMC XML.

The combined landscape of Denisovan and Neanderthal ancestry in present-day humans

Sankararaman, Sriram, et al. and David Reich.  Current Biology 26(9):1241–1247, 2016.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.03.037

camp: mainstream topic: incompatibility method: measurement direction: undercuts verified: full

Key figures: 257 genomes from 120 populations;  18 Neanderthal ancestry deserts longer than 10 Mb;  the same X and testis depletion for Denisovan ancestry;  more Denisovan ancestry in South Asia than models predicted.

Generalises the fertility result across two archaic populations independently.  The authors' phrase is "mixtures of human populations", which the article quotes.  PMC author manuscript.

The divergence of Neandertal and modern human Y chromosomes

Mendez, Fernando L., G. David Poznik, Sergi Castellano & Carlos D. Bustamante.  American Journal of Human Genetics 98(4):728–734, 2016.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.02.023

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: model direction: undercuts verified: full

Key figures: about 120 kb of El Sidrón Y chromosome;  outside all modern Y chromosomes including A00;  TMRCA about 588,000 years, 95 percent interval 447,000 to 806,000, 2.1 times the A00 depth;  missense changes in three H-Y antigen genes.

The second uniparental clock.  Haploid and paternal, so no heterozygosity carried through the Ark can explain it, and the ratio to the deepest living human split survives any rescaling that treats all human lineages alike.  Also a candidate mechanism for the fertility signal.  Europe PMC XML, CC-BY.  Superseded on the date, 2026-09-06.  Petr et al. 2020, with 6.9 Mb instead of 120 kb, put the same split at about 370,000 years and say the 588,000 figure was inflated by 3-fold coverage and single-read SNP calls.  The article now leads with 370,000 and cites Mendez for the wording and the H-Y antigen changes.

The evolutionary history of Neandertal and Denisovan Y chromosomes

Petr, Martin, Mateja Hajdinjak, Qiaomei Fu, et al. and Janet Kelso.  bioRxiv 2020.03.09.983445, 2020;  published as Science 369(6511):1653–1656, 2020.  https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.09.983445

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: model direction: undercuts verified: full

Key figures: three Neandertal and two Denisovan Y chromosomes over 6.9 Mb;  Denisovan-modern split about 700,000 years (CI 607,000 to 833,000);  Neandertal-modern split about 370,000 (353, 369 and 339 thousand for Spy 94a, Mezmaiskaya 2 and El Sidrón 1253);  TMRCA of the three Neandertal Y chromosomes about 100,000 years;  calibrated on A00 at 249,000 years (CI 213,000 to 293,000).

The dataset Jordan 2024 re-roots, and the paper that corrects Mendez 2016.  Petr's team applied stricter filtering to Mendez's own El Sidrón data and recovered their own younger estimate, so the 588,000-year figure that circulates in creationist writing is an artefact of low coverage.  It also reports that the Neandertal Y and mtDNA were both replaced by an incoming lineage related to modern humans between about 370,000 and 100,000 years ago, which is a real weak point in the mainstream account and is reported as such in the article.  Read from the 103-page bioRxiv preprint in the source library (CC-BY, with full supplementary information);  the Science version is paywalled and was not obtained, but its abstract, checked against the Europe PMC record for the DOI, gives the same two dates.  Obtained by the verifier on 2026-09-06;  the writer had recorded it as the top unobtained gap, and it was already in sources/index.tsv under the key petr-2020.

Identifying and interpreting apparent Neanderthal ancestry in African individuals

Chen, Lu, Aaron B. Wolf, Wenqing Fu, Liming Li & Joshua M. Akey.  Cell 180(4):677–687.e16, 2020.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.01.012

camp: mainstream topic: admixture method: measurement direction: supports verified: full

Key figures: about 17 Mb of Neanderthal sequence per African, where earlier methods found under a megabase;  Africans carry about a third as much as non-Africans;  gene flow in both directions.

"Every modern human population studied to date" carries Neanderthal DNA.  Also a caution:  a published figure moved twenty-fold when the method changed.  PMC author manuscript.

Nuclear DNA sequences from the Middle Pleistocene Sima de los Huesos hominins

Meyer, Matthias, Juan-Luis Arsuaga, Cesare de Filippo, et al. and Svante Pääbo.  Nature 531(7595):504–507, 2016.  https://doi.org/10.1038/nature17405

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: measurement direction: undercuts verified: abstract

Key figures: 28 individuals;  site dated to about 430,000 years;  nuclear DNA recovered.

Added by the verifier on 2026-09-06 to support the sentence answering Lubenow's claim that recovered DNA proves a young fossil.  Cited only for the fact that nuclear DNA was recovered from fossils at that age.  Abstract only, from Europe PMC.

Neandertal and Denisovan DNA from Pleistocene sediments

Slon, Viviane, Charlotte Hopfe, Clemens L. Weiß, et al. and Matthias Meyer.  Science 356(6338):605–608, 2017.  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam9695

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: measurement direction: undercuts verified: abstract

Key figures: Neandertal DNA in eight archaeological layers from four Eurasian caves, in layers with no hominin remains;  Denisovan DNA in a Middle Pleistocene layer at Denisova Cave.

Added by the verifier on 2026-09-06, with Meyer 2016, to answer Lubenow's DNA-implies-young-fossil argument on the record rather than by assertion.  Abstract only, from Europe PMC.

Deeply divergent archaic mitochondrial genome provides lower time boundary for African gene flow into Neanderthals

Posth, Cosimo, et al. and Johannes Krause.  Nature Communications 8:16046, 2017.  https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms16046

camp: mainstream topic: genomes method: model direction: undercuts verified: full

Key figures: Hohlenstein-Stadel mitogenome splitting from all other Neanderthal mtDNAs about 270,000 years ago;  the replacement hypothesis for the Denisovan-like original Neanderthal mtDNA.

Cited only for the replacement hypothesis.  The branch-length problem it feeds is owned by the Mitochondrial Eve article.  In the library with its supplement, CC-BY.

The Denisovan fossils outside Siberia

These sources serve the Denisovans article, Part 3.

A late Middle Pleistocene Denisovan mandible from the Tibetan Plateau

Chen, Fahu, Frido Welker, et al. and Jean-Jacques Hublin.  Nature 569(7756):409–412, 2019.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1139-x

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: Xiahe right hemi-mandible, found 1980;  dentine proteome placed with Denisova 3 at Bayesian probability 0.99;  U-Th on the carbonate crust 164.5 ± 6.2 ka (bulk), 155 ± 15 (top), 163 ± 10 (bottom), so at least 160 ka.

The first Denisovan outside the Altai.  Supports the human reading through its ordinary Middle Pleistocene anatomy and very large teeth;  its calcite date is the method's best case and is not answered.  Library key chen-2019b;  read from the Kent accepted manuscript (wording differs slightly from print), the published abstract from PubMed, and a rendered page image for the ± figures.

Denisovan DNA in Late Pleistocene sediments from Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau

Zhang, Dongju, et al. and Qiaomei Fu.  Science 370(6516):584–587, 2020.  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abb6320

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: measurement direction: complicates verified: abstract

Key figures: Denisovan mtDNA in sediments of about 100 and 60 ka, possibly 45 ka.

Independent support for Denisovans in the Xiahe cave, and the source of the remark that the jaw's identification rests on "an amino acid substitution in its collagen."  Only the published abstract was read:  the Wollongong figshare copy returned 403, the Lanzhou repository is behind a slider CAPTCHA, and MPG PuRe holds no file.

Middle and Late Pleistocene Denisovan subsistence at Baishiya Karst Cave

Xia, Huan, et al.  Nature 632:108–113, 2024.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07612-9

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: cave at 3,280 m;  the Xiahe 2 rib, identified by ZooMS and assigned to Denisovans by proteomics, in layer 3 dated 48–32 ka;  occupation from at least 160 ka to about 60 ka, possibly 45 ka.

Cited for the cave's elevation, the rib and the occupation span.  PMC full text.

The Harbin papers: Ji 2021, Ni 2021, Shao 2021

Ji, Qiang, et al.;  Ni, Xijun, et al.;  Shao, Qingfeng, et al.  The Innovation 2(3):100132, 100130, 100131, 2021.

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: 1,420 ml;  wide low face, massive brow, very large molars;  M2 closest in size and shape to the Denisova Cave molars;  Harbin and Xiahe a sister pair on Ni's tree;  sediment matched to the Upper Huangshan Formation (138–309 ka);  ten bone U-series ages 62 ± 3 to 296 ± 8 ka, five set aside as leached, minimum 146 ka.

The naming of Homo longi and its dating.  The large brain supports the human reading;  the bone U-series is the weakest date in the Denisovans article and is presented that way.  Footnotes copied verbatim from the Middle Pleistocene articles, which verified them.

The 2025 Harbin identifications: Fu 2025 (Cell) and Fu 2025b (Science)

Fu, Qiaomei, et al.  Cell 188(15):3919–3926.e9, 2025;  Science 389(6761):704–707, 2025.

camp: mainstream topic: genomes method: measurement direction: supports verified: full

Key figures: mtDNA from dental calculus within Denisovan variation, on an early Denisova Cave branch;  95 proteins, one highly confident and two potential Denisovan-derived variants;  no nuclear DNA.

Settle Harbin as Denisovan by two independent molecules.  Supports the human reading by giving the Denisovans a modern-sized brain.  Footnotes copied verbatim from the Middle Pleistocene articles.

Feng 2025, the Yunxian cranium

Feng, Xiaobo, et al. and Xijun Ni.  Science 389(6767):1320–1324, 2025.

camp: mainstream topic: background method: model direction: background verified: full

Cited only for the longi namers' statement that the clade "includes the Denisovans."  Footnote copied from the Middle Pleistocene Muddle.

Lacey 2019 and Lacey 2021 (Answers in Genesis)

Lacey, Troy.  "Denisovan Fossil Found in Tibet," 2019;  "Dragon Man, the Newest Human 'Cousin'?", 2021.

camp: creationist topic: yec-argument method: commentary direction: supports verified: full

Place Xiahe's Denisovans as descendants of Togarmah and the Harbin skull as a post-Babel human of 2200–1800 BC, perhaps Denisovan.  The human reading fits the evidence;  the date window is 35 to 38 times shorter than the Harbin minimum, and no faulty input for U-series is named.  Footnotes copied from Genesis 10 Name by Name and the Middle Pleistocene creationist-literature article.

Hebert, Snelling and Clarey 2016; Snelling 2018

camp: creationist topic: yec-argument method: commentary direction: complicates verified: full

Cited for where young-earth physicists put accelerated decay:  in the Flood year, or "during and soon after the flood."  That timing does not reach a calcite crust grown on a post-Babel jaw.  Footnotes copied from The Genus Homo.

Behaviour

Middle Palaeolithic burial is not a dead issue

Gargett, Robert H.  Journal of Human Evolution 37(1):27–90, 1999.  https://doi.org/10.1006/jhev.1999.0301

camp: mainstream topic: behaviour method: review direction: undercuts verified: abstract

Key claim: articulated remains are not evidence of burial;  in every post-1960s case the depositional setting suffices on its own.

The objection a creationist article must answer rather than ignore.  His 1989 Current Anthropology paper is on JSTOR and a metered read was not spent, because Rendu 2014 answers it by name.  Gargett's point still stands for the pre-1960s excavations.

Evidence supporting an intentional Neandertal burial at La Chapelle-aux-Saints

Rendu, William, et al. and Bruno Maureille.  PNAS 111(1):81–86, 2014.  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1316780110

camp: mainstream topic: behaviour method: measurement direction: supports verified: full

Key figures: a 39-cm-deep pit cut into marl, 140 by 85 cm;  karst, cryoturbation and bear-nest origins ruled out;  human bones far less weathered than associated fauna.

The answer to Gargett, made with the methods he demanded.  The paper's own limit is printed in the article:  no tool marks, and the hollow may be natural and enlarged.  PMC full text.

New Neanderthal remains associated with the 'flower burial' at Shanidar Cave

Pomeroy, Emma, et al. and Graeme Barker.  Antiquity 94(373):11–26, 2020.  https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.207

camp: mainstream topic: behaviour method: measurement direction: supports verified: full

Key figures: first articulated Neanderthal in 25 years;  micromorphology showing an abrupt truncation contact with compacted sediment below;  excavation too tight to see the scoop in plan.

The second modern-method burial case.  The team treats the original pollen-based flower claim as questioned.  Birkbeck accepted manuscript.

Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France

Jaubert, Jacques, et al.  Nature 534(7605):111–114, 2016.  https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18291

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: measurement direction: undercuts verified: abstract

Key figures: stalagmite rings 336 m inside the cave with traces of fire;  176,500 ± 2,100 years from uranium-series on regrowth over the structures, regrowth on burnt bone, and the stalagmite tips.

The hardest single date in the file and the best behavioural evidence for humanity, in one paper.  No published rebuttal found.  Complete abstract from Europe PMC;  the body could not be reached and only the abstract's four numbers are used.

Initial Upper Palaeolithic Homo sapiens from Bacho Kiro Cave, Bulgaria

Hublin, Jean-Jacques, et al.  Nature 581(7808):299–302, 2020.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2259-z

camp: mainstream topic: behaviour method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: layer I at 45,820 to 43,650 cal BP;  H. sapiens identified by tooth morphology and mtDNA from ZooMS-screened fragments;  one ivory bead and 12 pendants, 11 from cave bear teeth, "notably similar" to Châtelperronian Neanderthal ornaments.

The material record does not sort ornaments by species.  Against a young-earth chronology the layer is radiocarbon-dated with modern pretreatment.  Kent accepted manuscript.

Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54,000 years ago at Mandrin, France

Slimak, Ludovic, et al.  Science Advances 8(6):eabj9496, 2022.  https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abj9496

camp: mainstream topic: behaviour method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: alternating Neanderthal and modern human occupation of one cave;  modern human incursion at 56,800 to 51,700 cal BP by radiocarbon and luminescence.

Two populations sharing a shelter in turn.  The same Slimak wrote the 2018 comment against Hoffmann's cave-art dates;  he publishes 50,000-year chronologies of his own and is not a dating sceptic.  Europe PMC XML, CC-BY.

Evidence for Neandertal jewelry: modified white-tailed eagle claws at Krapina

Radovčić, Davorka, Ankica Oros Sršen, Jakov Radovčić and David W. Frayer.  PLOS ONE 10(3):e0119802, 2015.  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0119802  Library key radovcic-2015.

camp: mainstream topic: behaviour method: measurement direction: supports verified: full

Key figures: eight white-tailed eagle talons from one Krapina level, about 130,000 years by spin resonance and uranium-series;  four with cut marks, eight with polish or abrasion, three with notches at the same place;  an articulating phalanx with cut marks.

Ornaments made before any modern human was in Europe on the order the dates give, so the copying objection that hangs over the Châtelperronian does not reach them.  The reading as jewellery is the authors' inference from wear;  the age is borrowed from earlier work on the site.  Library PDF and text.

Symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by Iberian Neandertals 115,000 years ago

Hoffmann, Dirk L., Diego E. Angelucci, Valentín Villaverde, Josefina Zapata and João Zilhão.  Science Advances 4(2):eaar5255, 2018.  https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar5255  Library key hoffmann-2018c.

camp: mainstream topic: behaviour method: measurement direction: supports verified: full

Key figures: perforated and pigment-stained shells at Cueva de los Aviones;  the capping flowstone dated by uranium-thorium to 115,000 to 120,000 years, a minimum for the finds;  20,000 to 40,000 years older than comparable modern-human finds.

Same laboratory and method as the disputed cave-art dates (Hoffmann 2018b), so the open-system objection applies in principle;  the article uses only the relative order.  Library PDF and text.

The cave-art dispute and the dating method

U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art

Hoffmann, Dirk L., et al. and Alistair W. G. Pike.  Science 359(6378):912–915, 2018.  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap7778

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: measurement direction: complicates verified: abstract

Key figures: minimum ages from crusts over paint at three Spanish caves;  oldest 64,800 years.

Supports Neanderthal symbolic behaviour and needs a fifteen-fold compression to fit a Flood chronology.  The quoted abstract is the published Science one, checked word for word against the Europe PMC record for the DOI.  The 81-page Southampton accepted manuscript was obtained on 2026-09-06 with bin/anubis-fetch.py (the repository sits behind an Anubis proof-of-work wall that plain curl cannot pass) and is now in the source library;  its pre-print abstract differs in wording from the published one, so the published text is what the article quotes.  No body text is quoted.

Comment on 'U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art'

Slimak, Ludovic, Jan Fietzke, Jean-Michel Geneste & Roberto Ontañón.  Science 361(6408):eaau1371, 2018.  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau1371

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: commentary direction: complicates verified: abstract

Key claim: the geochronological data better support 47,000 years.

The dispute is over a factor of 1.4, and the article says so in the same paragraph.  Abstract only, from Europe PMC.

Response to Comment on 'U-Th dating of carbonate crusts…'

Hoffmann, Dirk L., et al.  Science 362(6411):eaau1736, 2018.  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau1736

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: commentary direction: complicates verified: full

Key claim: subsamples in correct stratigraphic order from crust surface to pigment show a closed system;  such sequences were published from all three caves.

The dating team's reason for trusting the ages, and the test that Bruniquel's three-target replication also passes.  Cádiz repository accepted manuscript, two-column, reassembled column by column.

Still no archaeological evidence that Neanderthals created Iberian cave art

White, Randall, et al. (44 authors).  Journal of Human Evolution 144:102640, 2020.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.102640

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: commentary direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: more than 130 direct radiocarbon dates on cave paintings, none older than 38,000 years;  the two sides of one La Pasiega rectangle dated to 65,000 and under 3,100 years.

Shows that uranium-series on thin cave calcite is not self-validating.  Its preferred answer, under 38,000 years by radiocarbon, is eight times the Flood.  Slimak, Aubert and Clottes are co-authors, so this and the 2018 comment are not independent.  Hoffmann's reply in the same journal was not read.  HAL accepted manuscript, cited by section.

U-series and radiocarbon cross dating of speleothems from Nerja Cave

Pons-Branchu, Edwige, et al.  Quaternary Science Reviews 290:107634, 2022.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107634

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: two stalagmites dated by both methods along their growth axes;  one gave U-Th age inversions exactly where aragonite converted to calcite while radiocarbon stayed in order.

The measured demonstration that U-Th on cave carbonate can fail, and that the failure is detectable.  Radiocarbon held up where U-Th did not, which is not a helpful result for a 4,500-year model.  HAL accepted manuscript.

The timing and spatiotemporal patterning of Neanderthal disappearance

Higham, Tom, et al. (56 authors).  Nature 512(7514):306–309, 2014.  https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13621

camp: mainstream topic: dating method: measurement direction: undercuts verified: abstract

Key figures: 40 sites with improved pretreatment;  Mousterian ends by 41,030 to 39,260 cal BP;  overlap with modern humans of 2,600 to 5,400 years.

The paper for how the disappearance date is established, by a method independent of every molecular clock.  Its first sentence, that radiocarbon runs out near 50,000 years, is quoted for why the older record uses other methods.  Complete abstract from Europe PMC;  it carries every number used.

Dental evidence for ontogenetic differences between modern humans and Neanderthals

Smith, Tanya M., et al. and Jean-Jacques Hublin.  PNAS 107(49):20923–20928, 2010.  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1010906107

camp: mainstream topic: yec-argument method: measurement direction: undercuts verified: full

Key figures: synchrotron counts of daily growth lines in eleven juveniles;  Le Moustier 1 at 11.6 to 12.1 years against earlier estimates of 12 to 20 and Cuozzo's 32;  Neanderthal crowns grew faster than modern ones.

Kills Cuozzo's long-lifespan model with his own kind of evidence, done better.  Smith agrees with him that modern dental standards should not be applied to Neanderthals;  the error runs the other way.  PMC full text.

Brain size and shape

The evolution of modern human brain shape

Neubauer, Simon, Jean-Jacques Hublin and Philipp Gunz.  Science Advances 4(1):eaao5961, 2018.  https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao5961  Library key neubauer-2018.

camp: mainstream topic: anatomy method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: CT endocasts of 20 fossil H. sapiens, 8 Neanderthals, 8 H. erectus, Kabwe, Petralona and 89 living people;  Neanderthal mean 1,450 ml (SD 189) against 1,328 ml (SD 164) for the living sample;  globular shape reached the present-day range between about 100,000 and 35,000 years ago.

Supports the creationist side on size:  Neanderthal brains were as large as ours.  Cuts the other way on shape, which the authors tie to the emergence of modern behaviour.  Library text and XML.

Neandertal introgression sheds light on modern human endocranial globularity

Gunz, Philipp, Amanda K. Tilot, et al., Svante Pääbo and Simon E. Fisher.  Current Biology 29(1):120–127, 2019.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.10.065  Library key gunz-2019.

camp: mainstream topic: anatomy method: measurement direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: Neanderthal and modern braincases of similar volume and non-overlapping shape;  a globularity score measured on MRI in 4,468 living people of European ancestry;  Neanderthal alleles on chromosomes 1 and 18 associated with less globular shape, with small single-SNP effects;  Jebel Irhoud's early H. sapiens braincases elongated.

The strongest skeptic datum on anatomy (complete separation in shape) and, in the same paper, two answers to it:  early sapiens shared the long braincase, and living carriers of Neanderthal variants lean toward it.  PMC HTML (Europe PMC's XML service returned an error).

The creationist case

Bones of Contention

Lubenow, Marvin L.  Baker Books, revised edition, 2004.

camp: creationist topic: yec-argument method: review direction: complicates verified: full

Key claims: Neanderthals are fully human;  interfertility is the one valid test;  the Virchow-Ivanhoe rickets diagnosis;  recovered DNA proves a young fossil;  four "unfounded assumptions" behind the mtDNA species argument.

The interfertility criterion was vindicated by Green 2010.  The rickets argument and the DNA-age argument are refuted by the fossils and by DNA from Sima de los Huesos and cave sediment, and the article says both should be retired.  Predates every nuclear archaic genome.  Read on archive.org by search-inside;  printed page = leaf − 2, anchored twice.

Buried Alive

Cuozzo, Jack W.  Master Books, 1998.

camp: creationist topic: yec-argument method: hypothesis direction: refuted verified: full

Key claims: Neanderthal children matured slowly and adults lived for centuries;  Le Moustier 1 at 32 years;  facial growth over "over 300 years" produced the adult morphology.

The only creationist mechanism for Neanderthal anatomy, and a real prediction of the biblical chronology if true.  Counted growth lines refute it.  Read on archive.org by search-inside.  The verifier anchored the leaf-to-page offset on 2026-09-06 from the item's _scandata.xml (leaf − 2 for leaves 13–178, leaf − 6 for leaves 183–355), so the article now cites printed pages 185, 189 and 203.

Neanderthal genome like ours

Carter, Robert W.  Creation Ministries International, 2010.  https://creation.com/neandertal-genome-like-ours

camp: creationist topic: yec-argument method: commentary direction: supports verified: full

Key claims: the draft genome vindicates the fully-human position;  three scenarios (patriarchs with long lifespans, descendants of an aged patriarch's child, one inbred Babel tribe);  "realistic modeling has yet to be performed."

The best-argued creationist statement and the one that concedes most.  His reading of Green 2010 is accurate on both points he leans on.  His separate claim about 70 percent chimpanzee Y-chromosome similarity rests on Hughes 2010's structural figure and was deliberately not carried into this article.  Saved page in the library.

An overview of the Denisovan puzzle

Line, Peter.  Creation Ministries International, 2019.  https://creation.com/en/articles/denisovan-puzzle

camp: creationist topic: yec-argument method: review direction: supports verified: full

Key claims: Denisovans, Neanderthals and the Sima de los Huesos hominins were fully human post-Flood populations;  by the biological species concept all are one species;  Denisovans may have been erectus-like.

The most honest creationist survey:  the long dates are quoted in full and then rejected by stated assumption, without a mechanism.  The erectus suggestion is his and is hedged;  the Denisovan nuclear genome is a Neanderthal sister lineage.  Saved page in the library.

Ancient DNA Shows Neanderthals and Denisovans Descending from Noah in the Line Ham

Jordan, Marshall.  Answers Research Journal 17:43–61, 2024.  https://answersresearchjournal.org/neanderthal/ancient-dna/

camp: creationist topic: yec-argument method: model direction: complicates verified: full

Key claims: Petr 2020's archaic Y tree re-rooted at a reconstructed Noah;  archaic Y chromosomes inside haplogroup A, the line of Ham;  long branches read as high mutation rates, from patriarchal drive or an inherited DNA-repair defect;  a one-line extension of the repair defect to mtDNA.

The most specific creationist answer to the branch lengths.  Re-rooting does not shorten a branch;  the repair defect is absent on a 206-gene scan;  patriarchal drive cannot reach mtDNA and Jordan does not claim it does.  His own caveat, "tenuous", is printed.  This project's index misattributed the paper to Matthew Cserháti, who is only acknowledged, until 6 September 2026;  see the quarantine page.

How reliable are genomes from ancient DNA?

Thomas, Brian & Jeffrey Tomkins.  Journal of Creation 28(3):92–98, 2014.  https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j28_3/j28_3_92-98.pdf

camp: creationist topic: yec-argument method: commentary direction: refuted verified: full

Key claims: DNA decay makes the assigned ages impossible;  contamination is unmeasurable;  the Neanderthal genome "morphed" from male to female through contamination.

Overtaken by events.  Contamination is now counted at diagnostic positions in every high-coverage genome;  the male-to-female example is a mismapping Green's team found and reported;  DNA has since been read from Sima de los Huesos.  Line 2019 and Jordan 2024 implicitly abandon this line.  Publisher PDF, two-column, reassembled.

Human History from Adam to Abraham

Ross, Marcus R., Peter S. Brummel and Todd Charles Wood.  Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism 9:66–87, 2023.  https://doi.org/10.15385/jpicc.2023.9.1.6  Library key ross-2023.

camp: creationist topic: yec-argument method: model direction: complicates verified: full

Key claims: Neanderthals are human;  75 of 104 Neanderthal sites (72 percent) are in caves cut into Paleozoic or Mesozoic rock, so the remains post-date the Flood on young-earth geology (p. 75);  Bruniquel cited as Neanderthal culture (p. 73) and as an occupation site that could not survive the Flood (p. 75);  no dating method has an accepted creationist recalibration (p. 75);  two placements of Babel with the cost of each, the post-Babel one preferred (pp. 76–77);  Neanderthals dispersed after Babel and were replaced before Abraham (p. 77).

The Wood-school treatment the draft lacked, and the most candid.  Its cave-geology argument is the best clock-free reason for a post-Flood placement.  Its own stated cost, "no account" of the replacement by H. sapiens, is printed beside it.  Library PDF;  folios read from the page foot (PDF page 8 = p. 73, 10 = 75, 11 = 76, 12 = 77).

How carbon dating works

Carter, Robert.  Creation Ministries International, 2021.  https://creation.com/how-carbon-dating-works  Library key carter-2021b.

camp: creationist topic: dating method: commentary direction: complicates verified: full

Key claim: samples formed soon after the Flood started with less carbon-14 and read too old, "perhaps by 50,000 years or more".

The young-earth answer to radiocarbon in its own words.  Saved page in the library;  the same footnote text is used in human-history-across-the-flood-date.

Correlation of C-14 age with real time

Brown, Robert H.  Creation Research Society Quarterly 29(1):45–47, 1992.  Library key brown-1992.

camp: creationist topic: dating method: model direction: undercuts verified: full

Key figures: Flood 5,350 years before 1950;  post-Flood air at 1.1 percent of today's carbon-14;  equation 8 "highly questionable" above 34,000 radiocarbon years (p. 46);  Table I.

The only young-earth radiocarbon curve with an equation.  Rebuilt in research/brown-curve.ts, it reproduces Table I to within five years and puts Higham's end of the Mousterian 6.6 to 9.5 years after the Flood and Bacho Kiro 0 to 1.5 years after it:  before Babel, which is why it is tagged undercuts.  Library text.

Primeval Chronology

Green, William Henry.  Bibliotheca Sacra 47(186):285–303, 1890.  Library key green-1890.

camp: biblical-scholarship topic: background method: commentary direction: complicates verified: full

Key figures: Flood to Abraham 292 years (Hebrew), 942 (Samaritan), 1,172 (Septuagint) (p. 300);  the genealogies "cannot properly be used, for the construction of a chronology" (p. 286).

Used for the length of the Babel-to-Abraham window.  The PDF text layer has gaps where words stood, so bin/quote-bytecheck.ts fails both quotations;  they were checked against the OCR text (green-1890_primeval-chronology.md, [[p.286]] and [[p.300]] markers).

Considered and not used

• Lubenow 1992 first edition (lubenow-1992, borrowable on archive.org). The 2004 edition expanded the Neanderthal section; it was used instead.
• Carter 2010's chimpanzee Y-chromosome claim. A different argument with its own literature; not carried into an article about Neanderthals.
• Meyer 2012's chromosome 11 hybrid-incompatibility remark. In the dossier without a page locator; the same point is made with locators by Sankararaman 2014 and 2016.
• Green 2010's sentence that the three Vindija bones were female and the earlier male call was mismapping. Now used. The verifier located it on 2026-09-06 under the section "Estimates of human DNA contamination"; it is quoted in Part 4 and quarantine entry 2 is closed.
• Birch tar (Niekus 2019, PNAS; Schmidt 2019, PNAS, showing tar can be made by a simple condensation method) and the Schöningen spears. Considered on 2026-10-27 and not worked up: the talons and shells make the behavioural point with verified sources, and the Schöningen makers are not securely Neanderthals. A future pass on Neanderthal technology should print both sides of the tar debate.
• Hoffmann et al. 2020's reply to White 2020 remains unread (see below).
• The dossier's mtDNA numbers (178 to 206 substitutions, the 5.7 to 11.4 required speed-up, the 1.01 relative-rate result, the POLG candidate). Stated in three sentences with a link; their sources are catalogued in the Mitochondrial Eve article.

Could not be obtained

• Petr et al. 2020 Obtained 2026-09-06. The bioRxiv preprint carrying the full supplementary information was already in the source library; the paywalled Science version was not obtained and is not needed for anything the article says. See the entry above.
• Hoffmann 2018 full text Obtained 2026-09-06 from Southampton ePrints through bin/anubis-fetch.py. The article still quotes only the published abstract.
• Slimak 2018, Jaubert 2016, Higham 2014, full texts. GEOMAR 401s, HAL and ULB records carry no file, and OpenAlex lists no open location for any of the three. Complete published abstracts obtained from Europe PMC and used; no body text quoted.
• Gargett 1989, Current Anthropology 30(2):157–190. On JSTOR; a metered read was not spent because the 1999 abstract states the same case and Rendu 2014 answers the 1989 paper by name.
• Hoffmann et al. 2020, Journal of Human Evolution 144:102810, the reply to White 2020. Not read.
• Line 2013, "Explaining robust humans," Journal of Creation 27(3):64–71, and Cuozzo 1994, Journal of Creation 8(2):166–178. The creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/ route probably reaches both; not tried.
• Zilhão 2010 (PNAS 107:1023), pigment and shell ornaments. Not fetched; Hoffmann 2018c's dated Aviones shells make the same point. Radovčić 2015 is now used (above).