The Others, in black and white

New Scientist has a piece up, Europeans did not inherit pale skins from Neanderthals, based on a paper I blogged last month. One thing that I hadn't though about in detail...how did anatomically modern humans of various shades perceive Neandertals of various shades? For example, it seems highly likely that there were swarthy Neandertals and pale Neandertals. Similarly, there were swarthy modern humans, and soon enough pale ones. Skin color is a very salient trait. Very different populations phylogenetically, Sub-Saharan Africans, Melanesians, and South Asians, have been defined as "black." Did modern humans perceive Middle Eastern Neandertals, who may have been relatively dark, as much closer to humanlike status because of their similar complexion to anatomically modern Middle Eastern humans? Did they perceive European Neandertals, who may on average have been much lighter, as fundamentally different? When doing physical reconstructions it seems to me that the gross morphology of Neandertals has been more emphasized. Their brow ridges, large prominent noses, and stocky body plans. But in this manner perhaps they're like our imaginings of ancient Greek temples as alabaster white. In reality the temples of antiquity and many public buildings were festooned with color. Similarly, Neandertals came in all shades.