Yes. According to Athena Swaruu, Neanderthals were not an inferior species as they are described in mainstream science but were simply more Lyrians — another variant among thousands and thousands of Lyrian variants in existence. They simply were not very technologically developed because they were in a process, or still in process, at a pre-industrial level of development (348, Athena Swaruu).
All Humans Are Lyrian
This statement is grounded in the broader Taygetan position that all humans — terrestrial and extraterrestrial — are fundamentally the same species: Lyrians. Athena states directly that Lyrians and humans are the same species. The difference between Earth humans and stellar humans like the Taygetans is not one of kind but of circumstance — primarily the effects of living within the 3D Matrix, which damages DNA and limits consciousness (348, Athena Swaruu).
From this perspective, species such as Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, and Neanderthal were not steps on an evolutionary ladder leading to modern humans. Yazhi Swaruu states explicitly that a Neanderthal is not an evolved human — it was another species of humanomorphic appearance. The same applies to all the other hominid classifications. They were different Lyrian variants, each seeded or developed in their own context, not one transforming into another through Darwinian evolution (359, Yazhi Swaruu).
Why This Matters
The Taygetans reject Darwinian evolution entirely. Species do not evolve from one form into another through natural selection and random mutation. Instead, species are seeded on planets by advanced interstellar civilisations, or they manifest as expressions of Source consciousness. Natural selection can purify genes within a species — selecting the fittest individuals — but it cannot create a new species from a different one (359, Yazhi Swaruu).
The implication is that all the various hominid species found in the fossil record were separate Lyrian variants, some more technologically advanced than others, some adapted to different environments, but none of them ancestors or descendants of each other. The human does not come from the monkey — the monkey is one thing and the human is another (359, Yazhi Swaruu).
The Neanderthals were simply a group of Lyrians at a particular stage of technological and cultural development, not a predecessor species that was superseded by "more evolved" modern humans.
Sources: Transcripts 348 (Athena Swaruu), 359 (Yazhi Swaruu)