The lesson of the Neanderthals is that storytelling too frequently masquerades as settled science, and that worldview assumptions often are passed off as hard data. Science got Neanderthals wrong because too few scientists were interested in getting them right.
And remember, it wasn’t that long ago that entire groups of humans were portrayed as primitive and apelike because of similar Darwinian assumptions.
I have always disputed the Neanderthals as Humans theory.
You may believe whatever you like, but I believe I was Created by the Creator of all Creation. IMO, belief in Evolutionary Theory is unfortunate - why would anyone claim to have ancient primates in their family tree?
Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims.
Maimonides (1135-1204 A.D.) says in “A Guide for the Perplexed” that before Adam and Eve a race of beings virtually indistinguishable from humans existed. The Jews called them “the people of the field.” What made them less than human, Maimonides said, was that they had no soul. When God breathed a soul into Adam and Eve they became the first true humans.