No, Vendramini has come out with an alternate theory for what Neanderthals actually looked like. Nobody has seen an actual Neanderthal in the flesh.
Forensic reconstruction of faces from skulls is an established field. People who do it for a living have lots of feedback based on later determination of who it was who belonged to the skull. I trust their determinations more than I trust Vendramini.
Neanderthal footprint(real, not artist conception):
Next time it rains, find some mud and see if you can make a footprint like that.
Neanderthal and human skeletons:
Note the cylindrical human ribcage and the conical Neanderthal rib cage. The conical primate rib cage simply allows room for the gigantic primate upper-body musculature.
Homo Erectus ("Turkana Boy") skeleton and reconstruction (Wikipedia), note the conical rib cage and also note that other than for the smooth skin which is wrong, scientists don't have any problem presenting Erectus (a close cousin of the Neanderthal) as a glorified ape which is in fact what both of them were:
The Neanderthal is generally presented as a slightly backwards or Down-Syndrome-like human because he has become a sort of a poster child for kum-bay-ah religion and scientific yuppyism. Representations from the late 1800s and early 1900s (i.e. from prior to the yuppifaction of science) looked much more like Vendramini's, e.g. Pierre Boule's reconstruction:
This is a case of the scholars from 1900 having it right or nearly right, and of more modern researchers having gone astray.
Aside from everything else, there's the question of no Neanderthal needles having ever been found (Cro Magnon needles are common); basic reality is that a creature with a 6" Ice-Age fur coat doesn't NEED needles...
