To attempt to restore the soft parts is an even more hazardous undertaking. The lips, the eyes, the ears, and the nasal tip leave no clues on the underlying bony parts. You can, with equal facility, model on a Neanderthaloid skull the features of a chimpanzee or the lineaments of a philosopher. These alleged restorations of ancient types of man have very little, if any, scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public. It takes lots of supposing to do the job.
Imagination takes the place of actual characteristics.
The flesh and hair on such reconstructions have to be filled in by resorting to the imagination. Imagination takes the place of evidence. The vast majority of artists' conceptions are based more on imagination than on evidence . . No one really know what they looked like. No one can be sure just what any extinct hominoid looked like.