[PapaBear3625]

Once again, this is what Neanderthals looked like:

So says Danny Vendramini, a writer with whose credentials are hard for me to find after a a bit of searching. A bio pages says "Australian born, Danny Vendramini had successful careers as a theater and film director and scriptwriter before turning to evolutionary biology".

Reconstructions by people with actual science backgrounds have Neanderthals looking not too different from us. Give one a shave, shower, and modern clothes and you would probably walk pass him on the street without thinking him that unusual.

[varmintman]

Vendramini's reconstructions are consistent with the DNA evidence: none of the others are.

The claim that they had the usual ice-age fur coats is consistent with the total lack of Neanderthal needles; creatures with fur coats don't need clothing or needles.

Vendramini's depiction of the huge nocturnal predator eyes is consistent with the huge Neanderthal eye sockets and the same is true of the Neanderthal nasal area. Attempts to draw a more human-like Neanderthal with eyes and noses the sizes they'd have to be look outlandish:

The basic reality is that the images you're used to seeing are artefacts of fiction.

[shibumi]

A-Hem! .....(cough, cough)