[whakim]

The fur thing just isn't compelling. Hominims lost their fur prior to developing tools in order to develop sweat glands all over their body, allowing them to expel heat better than their prey (and so hunt by literally chasing an animal until it got hyperthermia). Neanderthals may have been hairier to help in colder climates, but it's pretty remiss of the article to not mention that losing fur was one of the key developments in hominim evolution.

[You_All_R_Cunts]

Meaning fur was lost before we split from neanderthals, so they would have had to lose their sweat pores and regrown that hair? Seems like a large mutation to take place.

[Baeocystin]

Maybe not as much as you'd think. As an example, the EDAR Gene (https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/2/21/sweat-gene-iden...) affects, among other things, hair thickness and sweat gland density. It's isn't a small effect, and yet it's a single gene change in an otherwise highly conserved gene pathway.

[whakim]

Yes - hominims lost their fur before homo neanderthalis/homo sapiens. (Also it's probably more than a single mutation - more like a series of them.)