No need for name-calling.
Neanderthals had a slightly larger brain capacity than modern humans, made tools and used fire. Apes don't make tools, though they are smart enough to use things at hand to accomplish tasks.
God created them all; it's just a matter of if He went through intermediate forms while doing so, over the six days of creation, which could be a half billion years to a timeless Creator.
The Neanderthal was a very advanced bipedal ape with dark-world eyes and a six inch fur coat. His DNA is roughly halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee and a bit closer to that of the chimp. His brain may have been a bit bigger than ours but it was dominated by the area of the brain associated with vision and that combined with the huge eyes tells us that his brain was to a large extent the neurophysiological equivalent of the circuitry for a military night vision system. Our brains are dominated by the area involved in complex logic.