Rats. I haven’t read the last one yet and was planning to pick it up next week. 
I’d suggest reading it just for the complete-ness of the series. There are one or two ‘nice’ bits in it, which I won’t spoil, but over-all, it really feels like Kage wrote into a corner and wasn’t sure how to write her way out of it (I could’ve given suggestions. Mainly involving Budu and his axe.)
Not Australopithecus – Homo erectus.
As a counter argument, it’s one of the worst books I’ve ever read.
So why did it win the Hugo for Best Novel?
Politics. The year it won Worldcon was in Canada and Sawyer was actively campaigning for the award.
ETA: The author of Hominids Robert Sawyer was a prominent fixture on Canada’s science fiction network and promoted himself as Canada’s only full-time science fiction author.
And if you think winning the Hugo is a mark of guaranteed quality then you are in for a shock.
Thanks very much for all the tips (and warnings)! I shall hie me to the library and bookstore and see what looks appetizing up close.
Any movie with Ernest Borgnine in it. 
Was that the basis for the movie of the same title (which was pretty good)? Sounds like it; I’ll have to check that out.
I thought so at first myself, but then I saw the trailer and it didn’t appear to have much to do with it - a bunch of girls going spelunking and get picked off one by one, screams ensue, etc. And that seemed to be the main plot, no underground humanoids hinted at. But then again I haven’t seen it. Could be it’s loosely based on the book.
On that note, to Flyingdragonfan: I’ve been horribly disappointed by everything else I’ve read by him. It stings when that happens with an author you really really like at first.
In Mary Renault’s novel The Bull from the Sea, set in the Archaic or Heroic Age of Greece and starring Theseus, the “Kentaurs,” led by “Old Handy” (Nessus), obviously are Neanderthals. They riot at the royal wedding of the Lapiths of Thessaly (as much later portrayed on the frieze of the Parthenon) because they got hold of some of the wine, which affects them more strongly than H. sapiens.
So what is? The Nebula?
There’s Ember From the Sun by Mark Canter, which is about a scientist taking an embryo from a frozen mummy and cloning a Neanderthal child, who then grows up among Inuits and they believe she is a shaman.
It’s interesting, I read it a while ago though. There’s lots of mountain biking in it, oddly.
Not even close. The awards are just a measurement of popularity with a certain segment of fandom (yes, even the Nebula). Quality is secondary to popularity in most of the selections.
Asimov’s “Ugly little boy” short story, and then the novel expanded from it, in written with Robert Silverberg, deal with a Neandertal child.
As a third counter, I loved Hominids and I liked each sequel more and more. The entire trilogy was incredibly cool, and although some of the ideas weren’t exactly plausible, I enjoyed the books immensely.
Along these lines there’s also Raising Abel by Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal where scientists recreated Neanderthals. The hero of the tale only learns of this when one of the Neanderthals is dropped into his lap after people responsible for the project are murdered. I quite liked it.
There are similarities in that there’s an underground species of humanity. That’s pretty much the only similarity actually.
In A Greater Infinity, the bad guys are a fairly nasty multiversal empire of Neanderthals from an alternate timeline where they didn’t die out. They aren’t the only timeline of surviving Neanderthals, either.