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Originally Posted by Janszoon
You haven't really defined race here. In fact, you're using the word in the definition, which isn't very helpful.
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Actually, I did. Distinguishing physical characteristics perpetual to a certain population group that has a common geographic ancestor population.
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I believe there are competing theories about this. This point is, though, that it wasn't neanderthals. While, as fazstp pointed out, there is evidence that homo sapiens may have interbred with them to some extent, but the two were separate branches of the tree.
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It really doesn't matter, modern humans that followed the interbreeding now have neanderthal DNA in them, thus making the neanderthals an ancestor. It's really not something up for debate.
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Well, neanderthals had evolved quite a ways from homo erectus in that sense. And there's apparently some evidence to suggest they actually had bigger brains than homo sapiens, which brings us back to why you think lack of similarity to neanderthals would mean a group is "more evolved".
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What relevance does bigger brains have? For the second time, I'm saying that certain groups seem further evolved based on their appearance, namely neoteny. This has been a trend as "Homo Sapiens are more neotenized than Homo Erectus, Homo Erectus was more neotenized than Australopithicus, Great Apes are more neotenized than Old World monkeys and Old World monkeys are more neotenized than New World monkeys."