Yes. A topic of much debate. Many of the original work regarding Neaderthals was by 19th-century elite-school scientists with a publication history of eugenic

Yes. A topic of much debate. Many of the original work regarding Neaderthals was by 19th-century elite-school scientists with a publication history of eugenics and the confidence that comes from the knowledge of innate superiority of their own kind. Anyone who didn't look like them would be obviously inferior. They didn't know what we know today -- Neanderthals were light-skinned fair-hared people who had survived for half a million years in the harsh conditions of glacial and inter-glacial Europe and Asia. They had a rich culture of decorative arts and ceremonial burials. They were as capable of vocal speech as we are (same pharyngeal constructs, highly developed Broca's and Wernicke's regions in the brain). They encountered waves of dark-skinned Homo sapiens coming out of Africa and about 10,000 years later vanished from the scene. That there are light-skinned fair-haired Europeans today is evidence that they didn't vanish completely. The only evidence that H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens are separate species is the word of 19th-century French aristocrats who were concerned about maintaining racial purity.