Three or four things I figure led to the demise of the Neanderthal and the atlatl might have been the most major item. Apes don't seem to have the kinds of shoulders you'd want for throwing anything or using something like an atlatl. Other factors would have been Cro Magnons using dogs to nullify the advantage the Neanderthals had at night, fire, and general organizational ability. Neanderthals may have never developed the ability to think of themselves as part of anything bigger than their own family groups or clans.
I think Gary Larson summed it up succinctly. A group of hominids, clothed in skins & holding torches & spears are taunting a group of Neanderthal passersby:
“Nyahh, nyahh—can’t make fire, can’t make spear.”
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/france/index.php
And can’t abstract animal images on to cave walls.
FYI Laz, there should a bull figure shown on a large stalactite doing something in conjunction with the lower half of a female figure.
30,000 years ago, what kind of man reads Caveboy? A suave, self-assured, assisted-spear chucking, fairly hairless man with an eye for the finer things below the glacier.
That’s who.
The ability to send dogs in to kill Neanderthals AND act as warning systems probably helped in any inter-species war.