Table 2 Ranking of causal factors.

From: An emerging consensus in palaeoanthropology: demography was the main factor responsible for the disappearance of Neanderthals

Causal factors

Mean

count

Statistically different?

Population size

4.44

109

***

Climatic factors

3.20

87

ns

Social advantage(s)

3.19

77

ns

Inbreeding

3.12

49

ns

Stochasticity

3.03

34

ns

Epidemics

2.76

19

ns

Allee effects

2.74

26

ns

Economic advantage(s)

2.63

46

ns

Technological advantage(s)

2.60

63

***

Cognitive advantage(s)

2.19

39

***

Morphological advantage(s)

1.51

25

 
  1. Ranking based on mean scores. “Count” refers to the number of times respondents indicated they had endorsed the factor in their own work. The “Statistically different?” column tests if the mean of the higher ranked factor is significantly different from the next lowest ranked factor using paired t-tests, where ***p < 0.001 and ns p > 0.05.
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