What advantages did the Neanderthal genes add (or take away)?  The only way to really find out is to create a modern day living Neanderthal. There&#x27;s probably decades of research to do before we can pull that off, but some day it will happen. We need more than just the genome, unfortunately.<p>We already know a surprising amount about Neanderthal humans.  They were generally short, around 5&#x27;7&quot;&#x2F;170cm, but their bones and muscle attachment sites were larger, suggesting bigger and more powerful musculature.<p>Combine hereditary strength with a vigorous lifestyle during a brutal epoch, when both predators and prey were dangerous giants, and we are looking at a truly powerful breed of humans who are thought to have been many times stronger than modern Homo Sapiens humans.<p>It seems, though, that this great strength was not a useful enough trait to be passed on through interbreeding; the modern humans displaced H. Neanderthalensis after a few thousand years, and we definitely don&#x27;t have the musculature they had, not even our Cro Magnon ancestors who were contemporary with them.<p>Their huge braincases are another mystery. They averaged 1600 cubic cm, versus 1400 for modern humans.  Were the Neanderthals smarter? Or were their brains larger, as claims one scientist, to accommodate a larger optical center for their enhanced night vision?<p>Ah, what we would give to have a way to warp time and visit that bygone era!