It is a fossilized human if you consider neanderthals human. They have now confirmed that they made art, that is good enough for me. The teeth aren't mineralize

It is a fossilized human if you consider neanderthals human. They have now confirmed that they made art, that is good enough for me. The teeth aren't mineralized but they never are. A hundred million year old shark tooth is still a tooth not a fossil. But this jaw bone was mineralized, so it is a fossil. It doesn't take anything close 1.2 million years to fossilze a bone, and they think that is how old it was. I do see what you mean though, for something like 95% of our history, we had minds resembling our own, but lived such different lives.