I don’t understand this. If they have complete neanderthal skeletons (and they do) then they can (and have) measured exactly how tall they are. Unless what they are really saying is that they STOOD taller with a longer stride and had previously assumed they slumped around like gorillas. But if that’s what they beleived then every representation of neanderthals in every museum I’ve been in was lying because they show the neanderthals walking around fully upright.
Took a long time before the stature of a human was accepted as more than a monkey’s. Hold over from the early British historians I think. Same thing happened with assumptions about vocalization and speech. In fact the communication assumption is still present in many circles. Yet, they could somehow make elaborate works of art. “Autistic, low IQ minimal communication skills” but “surprisingly artistic” was going around even just a few months ago.
They somehow come up with these personal assumptions and they remain predominant for centuries because nothing new to the contrary will even be discussed or considered. the firewall goes up.
There are few near-complete Neandertal specimens. Museum displays are generally out of date and out of step with the most recent findings because they are generally out of money to do anything about it, and also, the most recent findings are coming in continually and will continue to do that. The myth of the ugly, humpbacked, mute Neandertal has developed out of the nitwith R. Virchow's irrational ex cathedra BS, but also the Out of Africa / Replacement model, which is just a master race bias, continues to spew out of the UK. Science is a method, not a body of knowledge, but as the old joke goes, science improves one funeral at a time.