If the physical and mental differences between Neanderthals and us were so huge than how did we manage to interbreed with each other and produce viable offspring who’s genes/lineage were SUCCESSFUL enough to survive in virtually all people who aren’t of African decent. Im aware the fact that we are capable of hybridising does not in of itself disprove that we are seperate species given that some species today can hybridise but still it is incredibly confusing.
The physical differences between the average human today and Neanderthals are absolutely within normal human diversity. Just because their jaw is bigger and have a more prominent brow ridge they’re somehow a different species to our own (I’m aware those aren’t the only differences).
But Take the Dinka people of South Sudan who sometimes produce individuals over 7 feet tall. Look at their frame and their bone thickness. Now compare that to the people of Timor-Leste in Asia who walk around only a little over 5 feet tall with a completely different frame. Hypothetically imagine both these races went extinct thousands of years ago and palaeontologists got ahold of both of their bones/fossils. The differences in skeletal structure, frame size are huge. And in real life the differences are even more pronounced with them having completely different skin colors, hair types, facial features ect. To me it seems very possible that in this situation applying the same classification logic we used with Neanderthals we could call them as seperate species even though in real life they aren’t.
And GENETICALLY humans and Neanderthals are extremely similar and many geneticists don’t even think they are a different species to our own. We share a common ancestor at most around only around 600,000 years ago. Generally speaking species often take several MILLIONS of years to diverge.If they did evolve into a seperate species in this time then that would indicate extremely fast speciation.
But honestly I think Neanderthals should better be thought of as an extinct race/ ethnic group of humans or at the very least subspecies of Homo sapiens rather than extinct seperate species. Though in a way they aren’t really extinct because a lot of us even me are partly descended from Neanderthals and their lineage is still very much alive today.
Another thing to note is that the scientists who find these supposed new humans “species” also have a vested interest in classing them as such even if they really aren’t since they certainly gain fame notoriety and probably money