"Father of all humankind is 340,000 years old"?

[A Theist]

I read somewhere that someone plans to clone a Neanderthal. Great idea. But then there was discussion about the ethics of how it should be kept and studied. It seems to me that you would have to do your best to give it a typical human upbringing if you wanted to know what it was capable of. A modern human child raised in a closet or by wolves would hardly be a prime specimen to study if you wanted to understand us.

I wonder what criteria was cited for claiming this 340,000 year old specimen was a direct contributor to our line? It doesn't sound to me like they are claiming this specimen was identical to modern humans - although it might be for all I know. But most early humanoids seem to be lost branches which do not necessarily feed directly to our lineage.

I read somewhere that someone plans to clone a Neanderthal. Great idea.

I remember watching TV where Japanese scientists were wanting to do the same thing with a Wooly Mammoth...that was last year and I haven't seen anything else about it since then....I wonder if they're actually able to do it?