While they didn't survive until today, they did survive for far longer than we have so far managed to, and in incredibly hostile conditions for the most part, which in itself is an enormous feat and makes you wonder, how did they do it?
They also never completely vanished; I have a number Neanderthal-specific alleles (more than most), as have pretty much all people of not exclusively subsaharan descent, and these alleles seem to have some pretty profound effects, some of them quite negative. That may be because these alleles evolved to work in concert with others that we haven't inherited, or for some other reason, but that would be quite valuable knowledge for a huge lot of people.
Besides, they're also a fascinating part of our collective history. They apparently had a unique and rich culture of their own; they are thought to have produced works of art before we even arrived in Europe[0] and they built pretty big structures out of stalagmites that appear to have no obvious practical purpose, in Bruniquel cave[1], about 176,000 years ago; by comparison, our ancestors seem to have started doing comparable things only ~60-50ka ago.
> They also never completely vanished; I have a number Neanderthal-specific alleles (more than most), as have pretty much all people of not exclusively subsaharan descent, and these alleles seem to have some pretty profound effects, some of them quite negative.
They also never completely vanished; I have a number Neanderthal-specific alleles (more than most), as have pretty much all people of not exclusively subsaharan descent, and these alleles seem to have some pretty profound effects, some of them quite negative. That may be because these alleles evolved to work in concert with others that we haven't inherited, or for some other reason, but that would be quite valuable knowledge for a huge lot of people.
Besides, they're also a fascinating part of our collective history. They apparently had a unique and rich culture of their own; they are thought to have produced works of art before we even arrived in Europe[0] and they built pretty big structures out of stalagmites that appear to have no obvious practical purpose, in Bruniquel cave[1], about 176,000 years ago; by comparison, our ancestors seem to have started doing comparable things only ~60-50ka ago.
[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02357-8 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruniquel_Cave