Claire Cameron, a Canadian author, has recently published The Last Neanderthal (Doubleday Canada, 2017), a fictional account of a young Neanderthal called Girl, a contemporary archaeologist Rose,  the 40,000 years separating their lives, and parallels between them. Rose has discovered Girl's remains nestled alongside those of a modern human in a small cavern in the French countryside and she spends much time defending the position that Neanderthals were not inferior to modern humans and trying to 'get inside'  Girl's mind.

Cameron's book brings back memories of an earlier author, Jean Auel, and her enormously popular Earth's Children series which examined the interactions between Neanderthals and modern humans through the life of a young woman, Ayla.  The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980) was so popular that it was made into a movie.  Other books followed: The Valley of the Horses (1982), The Mammoth Hunters  (1985), The Plains of Passage (1990), The Shelter of Stone (2002), and the Land of Painted Caves (2011).

Perhaps I am showing my age but Cameron is no Auel.  the characters she creates are self-focused, somewhat boring and mildly annoying which cannot be said of Auel's protagonist.  However, both authors bring a love of science and impeccable research to their writing!