In a simultaneously published paper, anthropologists Tim D. White, Berhane Asfaw, David DeGusta, Henry Gilbert, Gary D. Richards, Gen Suwa, and Francis Clark Howell described the material as just barely outside what is considered an "anatomically modern human" (AMH), beyond the range of variation for any present-day human. They instead considered the earliest "AMHs" specimens from Klasies River Caves, South Africa, or Qafzeh cave, Israel. They did this by comparing BOU-VP-16/1 with the Qafzeh 6 skull, the La Ferrassie 1 skull (a male Neanderthal, "H. (s.?) neanderthalensis"), the Kabwe 1 skull (""H. (s.?) rhodesiensis""), and 28 present-day male skulls. Consequently, they classified Herto Man as a new palaeosubspecies of "H. sapiens" as ""H. s. idaltu"" (with the presumed male BOU-VP-16/1 as the holotype), which represents an intermediary morph between ""H. (s.?) rhodesiensis"" and present-day "H. s. sapiens". The name comes from the local Afar language "idàltu" "elder". Similarly transitional specimens (at the time, not well-dated) tentatively assigned to "late archaic "H. sapiens"" had been reported from Ngaloba, Tanzania; Omo, Ethiopia; Eliye Springs, Kenya; and Jebel Irhoud, Morocco.