Quarry workers in the Neander Valley in Germany dug up more than limestone when, in 1856, they came across parts of an old skull and skeleton. By 1864, other similar specimens had been found and studied, and the archaic human was recognized as a new species: Homo neanderthalensis. (Neander Tal means "Neander Valley" in German.)
Back then, Neanderthals didn't have the image problem they do now. That came about at the beginning of the 20th century, when a leading French paleoanthropologist, Marcellin Boule, published the results of an extensive study of a complete skeleton found at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France. Boule's monograph was wildly popular all over the world, but unfortunately, it gave a wildly skewed description.
The skeleton from La Chapelle was of an old man who died -- and was buried -- some 50,000 years ago. Boule concluded: "Neanderthal Man must have possessed only a rudimentary psychic nature, superior certainly to that of the anthropoid apes, but markedly inferior to that of any modern race whatsoever. He had, doubtless, only the most rudimentary language."