[Agnes Heep]

It's ridiculous to try to base this kind of conclusion on morphology alone. There are so many variations within the current human species that any number of individuals might pass for "neanderthals." And the way I learned it, speciation has to do with the ability to interbreed and produce offspring. That can be affected by a lot of factors, but I doubt very seriously if skull morphology is one of them.

[alloysteel]

Which brings up the question: Did the Neanderthals interbreed with ancestors of modern man? I have no doubt that attempts were made, and there may have been viable offspring. These half-breeds may even have eventually bred true, which would make modern man maybe not so modern after all. Certainly some seeming throwbacks continue to appear even in the best of families.

And who knows? The crossbreeds may well have been major improvements over either of the parent stocks.