Michelle Wilcock

ANTH 1020

The peer review I have read is Neanderthal Extinction by Competitive Exclusion written by William E.

Banks, Francesco d'Errico, A. Townsend Peterson, Masa Kageyama, Adriana Sima, and Maria-Fernanda

Snchez-Goi. This review goes into detail of how they focus on a few climate phases during a specific

time period to see if Neanderthals exploited niches based on datasets or if Modern Human made more use

of them and the competition between the two led to the extinction of Neanderthals. Based on their

research, they have come to the conclusion that Modern Humans adapted better than the Neanderthals,

which led to them having a broader distribution area. In where they started competing with Neanderthals

and eventually forced them into extinction.

This article was cited by another source. Once that I found was a website in which it took an

argumentative stance. The site talks about how the paper makes a strong point but that its nearly

impossible just for the one factor to force a species into extinction. Reviewing the page didnt help me to

better understand the original article, because it went off on its own explanation instead discussing the

peer review like I thought it would.

This article does use the scientific method. The first step is to make an observation; and they observed

that there is the possibility that Neanderthals went extinct due to rapid climate changes and couldnt adept

well enough, or that the modern human forced them to extinction with competitive exclusion. And their

question was; What happened to make Neanderthals extinct? And the next step is to state your thesis,

which they do, and their thesis is that Neanderthals went extinct due to competitive exclusion. And for the

experiment step they conduct thorough research and collect data from the time periods they are looking

into. And for the final step of drawing a conclusion from their data; is that Neanderthals went extinct due

to competition with modern humans.

I most definitely would have approached this topic differently if I had to again. Because going into it I

had very little idea of what they were talking about. Things like climate phases and exploiting niches

made little sense to me. I had to look up what ecological niche is and I found out its a role and position

a species has in its environment (Arrington, D). If I approached the subject again I would like to have

more knowledge of things that I know will be in the subject. More or less, I would like to know the things

being discussed in a paper before reading it.

I cant say that the peer review changed my opinion of the subject matter. When I think about the

extinction of Neanderthals I think it is because they couldnt adapt well enough to the fast-changing

climate at the time and because of other things such as competition. I dont believe one thing is

responsible for the extinction of the Neanderthals, I think there were many factors at work and the

combination of them all led to their demise. But it does bring up a solid point that just because of

competition with the modern human Neanderthals went extinct. The idea does make one think about the

possibility. And its no wonder why it is such a heavily debated subject.

I think a lot of additional research is needed in respect to this topic, especially for someone who knows

little to nothing about the subject. The paper talks about specific climate phases such as: Greenland

Interstadials 911, Heinrich event 4, and Greenland Interstadial 8. GI911 were three short-term mild

events separated by two brief periods of cooling (POLS one). One would look into these climate phases

to see when they occurred and try and see how it affected a migrating species such as the Neanderthals.

Before reading this peer review I thought there would be a lot more information or facts to corroborate

their thesis of Neanderthal extinction by competition with modern humans. From what I understood

through reading they just seemed to talk about how the climate where Neanderthals were was sustainable,

therefor it couldnt have been extinction via climate change and lack of adaptability; so it must have been

competition. As I mentioned before this paper hasnt changed my opinion of how Neanderthals went

extinct but it has made me think more about the subject.

Works Cited

Arrington D. Ecological Niche: Definition & Importance - Video & Lesson Transcript.
Studycom. Available: http://study.com/academy/lesson/ecological-niche-definition-
lesson-quiz.html
Banks WE, d'Errico F, Peterson AT, Kageyama M, Sima A, Snchez-Goi M-F.
Neanderthal Extinction by Competitive Exclusion. PLOS ONE. Public Library of
Science; 2008. Available: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?
id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003972