This, my friends, is an orc

Tree of Woe reviews Daniel Vendramini, calling himself "Danny" I don't know why. Vendramini argues that Neanders either retained early-hominid chimp-like hair, or else regrew it whilst our African forebears steadily lost it in the Afar. The Neanders certainly retained chimp brute strength. And added to both; thus, they became quaggoths.

One salient argument is that the great modern-human bottleneck, heretofore associated with Toba, has since been (far) pushed forward, more to 45 kBC. We can see this in Frost-Age Dacia. Although, that assumes an earlier Neander-age bottleneck; the Ice Age would then be a second strike against us.

As for the Neander language - ehh, they had a symbolic language (they could tell, say, a spearhead from a handaxe) so a mental capacity for abstraxion.