[muawiyah]

Then you haven't read much about research into Neanderthals.

They were LARGE PEOPLE and ate lots and lots of meat.

The 700 pound computation comes from the fact that Neanderthals were about 30% heavier than other contemperaneous humans, but all these guys were about 5' tall ~ whether Neanderthal or something else.

Bringing them all up to MODERN sized folks at 7 ft would give you a 700 pound Neanderthal with no problem at all.

The point is to show that they were far more heavily muscled and lived a rugged life, and had larger bones.

[wendy1946]

Somebody 5' tall and any more than about 170 lbs is going to look like a pig and that's a fact of life for humans, chimpanzees, neanderthals, or anything else.

Your basic Neanderthal was built like a sort of a cross between a chimpanzee and an eskimo and might have been slightly stronger than an average human but could not possibly have been as strong as a typical NFL linebacker, much less a down lineman.