Other than for all of that, humans and hominids were/are related only via similar design; we are not descended from hominids and have never interbred with them. This (Vendramini reconstruction) turns out to be what a Neanderthal actually looked like and other hominids would have looked worse, not better:
that's a ridiculously inaccurate speculation.
The following is what we actually know about the Neanderthal:
• Neanderthal DNA was roughly halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee. That eliminates any possibility of humans being descended from Neanderthals via any process resembling evolution.
• His skull was a very good match for an ape's profile, and a bad match for one of ours.
• No Neanderthal needles (Cro Magnon needles are common); a creature with a 6" ice-age fur coat simply doesn't require needles...
• Footprints more apelike than human.
• Rib cages were conical as are those of primates (to make room for the gigantic upper body musculature); our rib cages are cylindrical.
• Eye sockets and nasal areas much larger than ours.
• Placement of noses and eyes on faces much different (higher) than for humans.
• We know that the mindset of the Neanderthal was similar to that of an African lion. He viewed the living world as neatly divided into two categories: his own family group and meat. Even other Neanderthal families were on the menu, and they find the remains of Neanderthal groups with clear butchering marks made by flint knives.
• We know (Rob Gargett) that if you put the skulls of a human, a Neanderthal, and lion together, the two which have much of anything in common are the Neanderthal and the lion.
• We know that Neanderthal population dynamics were similar to those of other predators, and that there were never more than around 10,000 – 15,000 Neanderthals alive on the planet at any one time.
• We know that the Neanderthal could adapt to an omnivorous diet when it was available but that, in the setting of the European ice age, he was for all intents and purposes a pure carnivore.
• We know that Neanderthals were not giants... a tall one might go 5-10 or 6'. But a male Neanderthal could easily have stood 5-9 and weighed 300 pounds with no extra weight on him.
All of that is consistent with Danny Vendramini's reconstructions.
We have H. neanderthalensis DNA, up to 4%, in us.
And, I promise, some folks would find that ridiculous reconstruction sexeh.
Consider also that horses and donkeys are much closer to each other than humans ever were to any hominid, and that all mules are sterile...
Read Eugene McCarthy, who has studied hybridization his entire career, writing the bible of Avian hybridization accounted the definitive work on the topic, and you will discover that a) not all mules are sterile, and b) even species that are sexually sterile, or even have no males, can survive and even become fertile, in time.
. For any hominid to have evolved into humans, that hominid would have to have:
• Lost his fur while ice ages were going on.
• Lost almost all of his night vision while living in the perpetual twilight of the “Purple Dawn” age and while surrounded by predators which could see very nicely in the dark.
• Lost almost all of his sense of smell while trying to survive as a land prey animal.
That third item would have been more or less instantly fatal for a land prey animal. Aquatic mammals, of course, do not really reqire a keen sense of smell…
There is also a claim that, because some humans have a certain small number of genes in common with Neanderthals, that humans and Neanderthals must have interbred. That amounts to thinking that a Neanderthal male could/would rape a woman and, rather than cooking and eating her afterwards as usual, somehow or other keep her alive long enough to bear a cross-species child, raise that child to reproductive age, and have him/her breed back into human populations without anybody catching on, i.e. the claim is ridiculous.
In real life:
• Neanderthal females would kill that woman the first time her new owner left her alone for ten minutes.
• The woman wouldn't fare any better than the subjects of the commie attempts to breed humans and apes into super workers in the 1930s.
• Humans would notice the child was different (really different...)
• And humans would kill that child and everybody else like him as part of the same program which killed out the Neanderthal. They would not need DNA tests to determine who to kill for that sort of reason, it would be exceedingly obvious.
The Neanderthal died out in a wave going from East to West as he encountered Cro Magnon humans with the last Neanderthal stand in Europe being in Southern Spain. There is just no way that humans who were conducting such a total genocide war would have tolerated half-breeds in their own midst.
I do appreciate your substantive response, and the copious thought you have given the matter.
I disagree with many of the cultural assumptions you make regarding both species of hominids, and therefore with your conclusions. The evidence shows that H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis cohabited for tens of thousands of years in Europe, and this shows that simple animosity wasn't the sole interaction between them.
If it had been, the newcomers would have been eradicated instantly, while we were few in number and vulnerable. Neanderthals conducted the first burials, with flowers heaped on the dead, and without eating them first. I do not doubt that cannibalism occurred, but you cannot deny H. sapiens has also done the same thing.
Also, we aren't prey. I was raised wild, on an island in Alaska, and we are the dominant predators, even without firearms - except when faced with the ire of a protective mother. Three beasts have caused me to undoubtedly make the right decision to run away, and the mother bear, the mother moose, and my ex were the only things I ever feared enough to flee in total panic.
Every other bear, mountain lion, elk, wolf, and even predators in the sea, I ran across fled from me, and with good reason. Not so long ago I read of a drunken young man staggering home in Alaska at 2am, crossing a bridge, and alarming a mother Grizzly fattening on the salmon below.
He beat her to death with a stick when she attacked him. I have seen Grizzly bite through a steel tool box full of tools, mangling the wrenches and ratchets within like baling wire, and never even chipping a tooth. I damn near pissed myself. But the guy whose pickup bed the bear had sought a tasty snack in, opened the door to the truck and began to get out, and the bear ran, watching over his shoulder to see if the man 1/4 his size was gonna chase him down and kill him.
We are the dominant predator, and have been since we evolved - through stability processes. Read Eugene McCarthy, and you will either be enlightened, or outraged.
Either way, stability theory better explains the origin of species than neo-Darwinian theory, and Neanderthals were human, not beasts.
"The evidence shows that H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis cohabited for tens of thousands of years in Europe"
Probably not:
http://www.bearfabrique.org/Catastrophism/wiealt.html
xx
I see that you are consulting sources, which is a great way to get information. It is important to consult as many sources as possible, and to consider how they get their information, so that one can reasonably assess the reliability of that information.
I have been unable to find other sources that have pulled this particular number out of their posterior orifice, and suggest you replace it from whence it came.
I, in short, do not find the evidence presented in the link you provided compelling, and the technique he used to arrive at his conclusion is best described as 'completely making it up'.
Rather than ignoring all other sources of information and settling for the one that is least convincing, I do suggest you seek out more sources, at least if you want to be able to make arguments that have the potential to convince me of anything other than your ignorance.