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At issue, beyond the personal reputations of the players -- a factor not to be taken lightly in a field where professional regard often translates directly into book contracts -- is a complicated mix of rival theories on human evolution in Europe. Competing paradigms in the sciences are nothing new, but when human origins are the issue, each piece of evidence can resonate with uncomfortable implications. "Neanderthals," says Kharlena Ramanan, who maintains a Web site on the subject, "are the ancestors nobody wants."

Most paleoanthropologists agree that the common ancestor of both modern humans and Neanderthals arose in Africa several million years ago, and that this common ancestor's descendants spread widely over the Earth, evolving as they went. In general, hominids in tropical zones of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, tended to evolve toward a taller, more gracile form, and those venturing into colder areas moved toward a more compact, shorter and heavier-boned shape, which would expose less surface area and retain body heat better. Neanderthals, in coping with Ice Age Europe, evolved toward that heavy-boned "arctic" profile.

The question is, how far did Neanderthals drift from the African original? Some paleoanthropologists believe that Neanderthals became so distinct as a group that they were a totally separate species of hominid. This theory contends that when another wave of dispersal from Africa occurred -- supposedly bringing members of a highly successful and adaptable African line into the Neanderthals' European stomping grounds about 35,000 years ago -- the Neanderthals were doomed.

Over approximately 10,000 years of the fossil record, anatomically distinct Neanderthal skeletons disappeared and -- more or less concurrently, depending on who you ask -- more slender and "tropical" skeletons emerged. These so-called Cro-Magnon, or anatomically modern humans, were associated with increasingly sophisticated cultural artifacts and tools.

To many anthropologists, this pattern suggested that "Out of Africa" moderns simply replaced the Neanderthals. Some of the replacement scenarios suggest a Paleolithic version of Attila the Hun, in which invading Cro-Magnons ruthlessly exterminated fleeing Neanderthals. Others in the replacement school believe that the Neanderthals might have been infected with new Cro-Magnon diseases. By far the most common theory, however, is that anatomically modern humans simply outclassed the Neanderthals -- mentally, culturally and technologically -- in competition for survival resources.

All of these replacement theories assume that the Neanderthals were merely an unsuccessful branch on the family tree, Mother Nature's failed experiment. Any similarities that we can see between ourselves and Neanderthals, these scientists argue, are only the result of our both having descended from that much older common African ancestor.

However, David W. Frayer of the University of Kansas, along with Milford Wolpoff and C. Loring Brace of the University of Michigan, has been arguing for at least a decade that the apparent succession in the fossil record is deceptive. Frayer maintains that there really was no abrupt shift between separate populations, but a transition within Neanderthals over time, which eventually led to our own body type. "There undoubtedly were population movements into Europe bringing in new genes," he says, "but there was no rapid replacement."

In Trinkaus' version of what happened in Europe, the two distinct groups coexisted, then came together, interbred and thus merged genetically. The Lagar Velho child, Trinkaus and his team contend, is an example of an "intermediate" form between two distinct types of humans, and thus constitutes proof of the "genetic admixture" hypothesis.

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