Crap about humans being related to any hominids other than via similar design remains crap no matter how often it is repeated. Neanderthal DNA was halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee; we could no more interbreed with them than we could with horses, and we are not descended from them, and all other hominids were FURTHER removed from us THAN the Neanderthal.
Too-far-removed-to-be-descended-from-via-evolution is a transitive relationship. There is nothing on this planet we could be descended from via any process resembling evolution.
Neanderthals are simply a slightly different version of our own type of human being ~ right down to the DNA.
The only thing halfway to a chimp would, of course, be another chimp ~ there are several species and they are quite different from us and other varieties of our kind.
I remember continuously asking this European teenager on a forum I used to be on, exactly how we evolved. I never got an answer from him.
I doubt I’ll get an answer from any other Liberal, either.