Neandertals care for ill Yes, Neandertals have to be Homo sapiens because they had to have had matings with Homo sapiens expanding out of Africa that produced fertile offspring in order for there to be Neanderthal genes in living Homo sapiens . Hey, Neandertals had bigger average brain sizes than Homo sapiens . They were reproductively absorbed by populations from "Africa" ( wasn't Africa at that time; Northeast "Asia" wasn't "Europe", either ), not eliminated . War didn't exist yet . Populations were expanding out of "Africa" not vacating "Africa". Said geographic expansions were due to success in the ultimate Darwinian fitness test: population growth. The proof of selection for, adaptation to, survival as the fittest _is_ population increase. The populations coming from Africa were growing at a faster rate than the Neanderthal and homo erectus populations in Asia. So, Homo sapiens "replace" by mating absorption ; they are mating and reproducing at a higher rate. The Mitochondrial Eve's of East and South "Africa" were Love Goddesses. On Oct 28, 2018, at 9:04 AM, CeJ (via marxism-thaxis Mailing List) wrote: And: http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/04/news/la-ol-neanderthals-africa-dna-20140204 But stop the presses! It now appears that some sub-Saharan Africans do have Neanderthal-derived DNA nestled in their genomes. An article this week in New Scientist magazine reports that some members of Khoisan tribes in southern Africa turn out to have genes in common with southern Europeans. Some of those genes may be traceable to modern Eurasians making whoopee with Neanderthals. Apparently some Eurasians migrated to eastern Africa 3,000 years ago, in what New Scientist calls “humanity’s unexpected U-turn.” Their descendants later migrated south. This latest report doesn’t mean that all or even most sub-Saharan Africans have Neanderthal ancestry, nor does it alter the fact that humans can be roughly divided into geographical groups (or races, to use the politically incorrect term). But clearly the human family tree is more gnarled and bushlike than was supposed only a few years ago. Modern humans apparently mated not only with Neanderthals but with another group of distant cousins, the mysterious Denisovans. And the various breeds of hominid got around, sometimes retracing the steps of their ancestors. But back to the Neanderthals, who went extinct as a distinct species (or subspecies?) 30,000 years ago: It’s rather poignant that we — or a lot of us, anyway — carry around a bit of them in our cells, though thankfully not in our physiques. On Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 7:07 PM Charles Brown wrote: Neanderthals "rebranded" More and more like "white folks" ever since DNA findings showed that they were, well, kind of "white" in terms of skin color Excerpt: In a paper published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, University of York’s Dr. Penny Spikins and co-authors argue that Neanderthals embraced healthcare practices, such as assisting in cases of serious injury and the challenges of childbirth.