And finally, it is worth noting that it is a fallacy to craft an analogy between modern post-Industrial society and the pre-urban subsistence world of the Cro-Magnon. Back then, and until relatively very recent times (about 5000 years ago) the degree of technological aptitude or cultural sophistication was all but indistinguishable between humans worldwide.
You are a bit smug about this. First you say intelligence and technolgy matter. In the next breath, you say they don't. Your readiness to throw around words like "fallacy" are a hint. Tool making is driven by necessity, not intelligence. Those who live in the garden of eden where food is plentiful and climate is not harsh can do very well without technology.
The bushman of the Kalahari dessert spend only four hours a day working to survive. The same with Amerindians deep in the Amazon Jungle. Where people compete for scarce resources, they learn each other's technology which more often than not had to do with fighting. The endless wars and competition among people of Eurasia brought them to a more advanced state of development than elsewhere. An old saying, "necessity is the mother of invention." is a good commonsense explanation of technological differences than the academic one that looks for intelligence in genetics. One would have Condolezza Rice washing floors with such a view.
At no point did I say that intelligence and technology don't matter. What I did was agree with you that they did not matter in the way that you incorrectly thought I had previously said that they mattered.
The Neanderthals lived in a much harsher environment than that where the early modern humans that replaced them originated.