Salam
I was reading this Nat Geo article that caught my attention. Neanderthals lived for a long time before modern humans, and apparently they could speak, conducted funeral rituals, drew pictures, etc. They sound quite human to me, but they lived separately from "modern humans" for thousands of years.
Apparently today's humans have Neanderthal DNA, indicating a common ancestor between the 2 subspecies. However, Adam and Eve were the first humans, weren't they? And all other humans were descended from them? This is my understanding of the issue from monotheistic scripture. So is it possible that Adam and Eve were the common ancestors of modern humans and Neanderthals, and they sort of evolved into these 2 different races as time passed?
However, a common ancestor of both subspecies would have been distinctly simpler than even Neanderthals. It's unclear whether such an ancestor would have been able to speak, let alone be a vicegerent of God.
So what happened with this whole evolution thing, and where did Adam and Eve come in? Were they before both Neanderthals and modern humans, or what? Neanderthals and modern humans had to share ancestor(s), since they're related. However it's unclear whether these ancestors were Adam and Eve, or if they were even human.
Where do you draw the line between evolution and religion? Adam and Eve had to be fully human, but I'm not even sure what constitutes a "fully human" being at that time.