::I thought I'd check the French version as well. As I thought might be the case in the home of Rousseau, it's a bit naive-sounding nobel-savagey for my taste.  Nevertheless, it also depicts the subspecies option as basically old news: 

 A Neanderthal is a representative fossil kind Homo who lived Europe and West Asia to Middle Paleolithic between about 250,000 and 28,000 years before present. For over a century after its discovery, the assumptions about it reflected the prejudices of the moment: long considered a subspecies of Homo sapiens named accordingly Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, it is now regarded by most authors as a species appointed independent Homo neanderthalensis. 

 The first "Man" fossil recognized, first "human being" disappeared separate from the Man Current, the Neanderthal is the origin of rich material culture known Mousterian and initial aesthetic and spiritual concerns in Europe (graves). After a difficult recognition, the Neanderthals had long suffered from a negative against Homo sapiens. It is still regarded in the popular imagination as a being simian, crude, ugly and retarded. It is actually more robust than Homo sapiens and the brain is slightly larger on average. The progress of archeology prehistoric and paleoanthropology since 1960 have revealed a creature of great cultural richness. 

 Many issues are yet to be elucidated, especially regarding the causes of its extinction after 300,000 years existence, to 28,000 years BP.