Czarnetzki (1991) established Homo erectus reilingensis with the Reilingen specimen from Germany as the type. Czarnetzki (1991) recounted the discovery of the fossil, its geological context, as best could be determined, and provided a morphological description of the fossil including an enumerated listing of purportedly primitve, Homo erectus-like traits as well as more derived, Homo sapiens-like traits. Carnetzki concluded the paper with the designation of a new taxon,
"Malgré sa mosaïque de caractères évolués ou uniuqes et archaïques, l'individu de Reilingen représente, selon Mayr (1965), une étape évolutive davantage Homo erectus que sapiens, différente de toutes les formes déjà connues de ce taxon. Ceci ne représente pas un critère de datation. Ainsi, il peut formellement être désigné sous le nom de Homo erectus reilingensis." (p. 110)
This passage translates roughly to,
Despite its mosaic of evolved or unique and archaic characters, the Reilingen individual represents, in accordance with Mayr (1965), an evolutionary grade more Homo erectus than sapiens, different from all the already known forms of this taxon. This does not represent a dating criterion. Thus, it can formally be referred to as Homo erectus reilingensis.
The last line positively established the subspcies name.
An earlier paper (Czarnetzki, 1989) in German provided a morphological description of the fossil and comparisons with other relevant taxa. This paper also included the first use of the name. The author wrote,
"Nach Abwägung der Art und der Anzahl der Merkmale sowie der daraus resultierenden Zahl von Generator- und Strukturgenen wird für die Bezeichnung derar- tiger Merkmalskombinationen und speziell für den hier untersuchten Fund die vorläu- fige Bezeichnung: Homo erectus reilingensis.” (Czarnetzski, 1989 p. 200)
which loosely translates as,
"After considering the type and number of characteristics and the resulting number of generator and structural genes, the provisional designation for such combinations of characteristics and especially for the find examined here is: Homo erectus reilingensis.”
The use of the phrase "vorläufige Bezeichnung" in the 1989 article signals a conditional proposal (Article 15), and thus the 1991 article is taken as the year of authorship. It should also be noted that the establishing nomenclatural act in the 1991 article does not use “sp. nov.” to explicitly indicate a novel species or subspecies name in accordance with Article 16 of the Code, however this requirement only affects names published in 2000 or later, and thus the name, reilingensis is available and potentially valid.
Adam (1989) interpreted the Reilingen specimen as an early representative of Homo sapiens and referenced the subspecies name in quotes. Condemi (1996) concluded the fossil to be more closely aligned with Neanderthals and discussed the history of interpretation, including an unquoted use of the subspecies name reilingensis. Dean et al. (1998) also interpreted the specimen as an early Neanderthal and mentioned Homo erectus reilingensis without quotes. Speed et al. (2006) referenced the subspecific name with quotes, whereas, Athreya and Hopkins (2021) listed the name, unqualified, i.e. without quotes.
