If they were still alive today and could talk, would we classify them as not homo sapien?
Nuclear DNA Analysis Proves Neanderthals Were a Different Species
This confirms previous analyses of mitochondrial DNA.
A sequence of about a million base pairs ( about 0,03 % of the genome) has been achieved from a 45,000 years old male Neanderthal from Vindija Cave, in Northwestern Croatia. This sequence has allowed American and German scientists the first comparison of human and Neanderthal DNA.
The analysis showed that the two lineages diverged about 300,000 years ago and that Neanderthals may have had much DNA in common with chimps. Anyway, they share a common ancestor with us, but they are not more closely related than that.
Nucelar DNA analysis brought a new type of evidence to the longstanding debate over whether these hominids, which lived throughout Europe and western Asia from 300,000 years ago to 30,000 years ago, were a species separate, Homo neanderthaliensis, from our own, Homo sapiens, that did not contribute to the modern human gene pool, or whether they were a breed of our own species.
Previous researches were made only on mitochondrial DNA samples, which preserved better. Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, was the first to recover mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from a Neanderthal, back in 1997 and also the nuclear Neanderthal DNA. Several studies conducted on mitichondrial DNA pointed that it differed significantly from those of living humans.
Some critics argued that nuclear DNA might tell a totally different story. Nuclear DNA does not preserve so well as mt DNA in the fossils. In fact, very small fragments of nuclear DNA have been recoverable, which made the analysis even more difficult.
Human, chimpanzee and Neanderthal nuclear DNA samples have been compared. The team succeeded to manage such a small amount of DNA by using a novel sequencing technique. Neanderthal Y chromosome is very peculiar, differing substantially more from human and chimp Y chromosomes than are other chromosomes. This trait suggests that little interbreeding occurred, at least among the more recent Neanderthal populations and humans. “This is a hint of exciting things to come as more Neanderthal sequence is produced,” says David Haussler at the University of California, Santa Cruz, US.
The traditional method of sequencing DNA indicates that Neanderthals split off from the lineage that led to modern humans around 315,000 years ago, sustaining previous estimates. This confirms the ideas that Neanderthals did not contribute substantially to the modern human genome. “Were there Neanderthals in our lineage? All of the genetics seems to be going in the direction that there weren’t,” says Richard Potts, head of the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program in Washington DC, US.
Paabo’s Neanderthal Genome Project is aiming to sequence 10 Neanderthal genomes in the next 10 years.
If they lived among us now and interbred with us and produced fertile offspring, they would be considered part of our species, and for politically correct reasons would be re-classified as Homo sapiens sapiens, just like us and lose the Homo sapiens neandethalensis. But, since there is no evidence that they ever did interbreed with our line and they are indeed anatomically distinctly different than us (bigger muscles, brain organized in different ways, skeletal differences, facial differences, etc., etc.) they are, IMHO, correctly considered a different species.
Further, there is evidence that they were behaviorally different than us since their tools ("weapons") were less sophisticated than the ones our direct ancestors fashioned. And while it is PC to say we "outcompeted them" I believe that we wiped them out, and may very well have cannabilized them for good measure (after all, it was much easier to hunt Neandethals than elk or whatever).
That’s probably an artifact of the 19th century excoriation of the Neandertal, which began with Virchow I think.