Neanderthals are supposed to have died out 50,000 years ago; another one of these standard time frames based upon projecting present conditions and processes into the distant past.

The best reconstructions of neanderthals I've seen are those of Jay Matternes', which appeared in the Oct. 81 issue of "Science". Scientists had known for some time that the standard reconstructions were based entirely on early, arthritic skeletons, but nobody had really done a serious job of reconstructing an image of these people from more recent evidence.

First time I saw Matternes' drawings, I thought "Gee, I've seen that guy somewhere or other before..."

Sir Mortimer Wheeler "Civilizations of the Indus Valley and Beyond notes that the physical type noted, which he calls a "priest/king type" appears in statues along with other images more easily recognizable as modern people, and assumes that the type shown is non-representational art.

Somebody may have forgotten to tell the artists and sculptors of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro (about 1500 BC) about the 50,000 year thing...

Again, despite looking much like us, neanderthals were vastly different genetically. Their DNA has been described as "about halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee", cleanly eliminating them as a plausible ancestor for modern man.