I find it hard to believe knuckleheads were around that long! ;-)
Neanderthal was at its most advanced level of evolution. Its cranium, with a volume ranging from 1200 to 1700 cc, was in fact larger than that of Cro-Magnons (Paleolithic European Homo sapiens), and also 10% greater than that of modern humans in average. If brain size is any indication, Neanderthals could have been cleverer than us. But that’s not the whole story. Neanderthal’s skull had a lower vaulted prefrontal cortex than most modern humans, and it has been speculated that they would have had less good at decision making and moderating social behaviour. On the other hand, Neanderthals possessed a bigger occipital lobe, meaning that their visual abilities (including the distinction of details and colours) were certainly better than that of modern humans.
There are several genes influencing skin colour. Among them, the BNC2 gene, which influences saturation of skin colour and is responsible for freckling, was confirmed by Sankararaman et al. (2014) to have been come from Neanderthal As for the genes for light eyes, there is a relatively high likelihood that they were inherited from Neanderthals too,
thier stupidity could be a a misconsception