Specifically, he's accepting a crackpot's idea of what Neanderthalers looked like.
In the opposite direction, a number of years back, Wikipedia used a crackpot picture
that Proconsul looked like an Australopithecine with legs longer than arms.
This was uncritically adopted by a crackpot in talk.origins who is still posting there,
whom I caught puking all over someone whom you would like for
t.o. regulars to think of as a crackpot. I gave him the "pot kettle black" treatment,
and when you entered the fray, he suddenly became civil towards the person
he had been puking over.
The initials of the crackpot are BC; his victim goes by one name beginning with G.
Details on request.
Peter Nyikos