I never surmised that Neanderthals were not a speaking species, but I am willing to use that contention, however ill-founded, as an allegorical explanation for their inability to compete successfully, and eventually triumph.Ah, allegory. Here's the quote from your earlier post:
It may well be that a superior brain size of Neanderthals conferred little advantage because they were stymied by an inability to articulate an advanced language well. Only when a gene for advanced brain size got somehow correlated with other genes for brain complexity, and language skills and vocal structures could societal skills be properly passed on to the next generations.Since the evidence is that Neandertal is ancestral to part of the Earth's population, it is pointless to speculate on reasons for their extinction.
Not being argumentative for its own sake, but the beginning of the discussion was in reference to a single gene, and how it may have been transmitted.
My point was that this single gene, in its earliest configuration, may have conferred little advantage, but in subsequent mixtures it proved to have been a good investment.