They were the brutes of Ice Age Europe, although a branch of our human family tree they were still viewed upon as a dead end. Deep in our prehistoric past they were called Neanderthals. They carved out a marginal existence hunting by brute force with only simple stone tools, they were considered primitive with no language, art or the higher level thinking of an advanced species such as ourselves.
They began to disappear 40,000 years ago as modern humans came onto the scene. However this primitive picture is now being replaced by a different image of Neanderthal, bringing them much closer to us as genetic evidence revises our human family tree and reveals their mysterious presence right within our genes.
Now archaeologists are finding new evidence which suggests they were much more.
there were probably some interbreeding the rest was assimilation! even today when one human invents a new tech, the rest accept it and copy it and build on it, so there -mystery solved! of course once the people with better tech came to europe neanderthal culture disappeared, cause they would immediately start to utilise new tech, but since they lived for such a long time with the same tech, i wouldnt compare them in brain capacity to Sapiens… even monkeys use stone tools… they maybe werent idiots but their language and social skills were limited at best