Neandertals Were Homo Sapiens's Mental Equals?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=neandertal-art-human

A 'friend' of mine apparently found himself offended by this scientific discovery.  As a creationist, he felt he needed to try and dismiss it as nothing suprising, saying it fit perfectly well within the framework of "Gap Theory".

Being geniunely curious, I asked him how it was that the discovery Neanderthals understood symbology related to an attempt at reconciling the age of the earth with a story in the bible?

His response?  

"The Gap Theory holds to an old earth.
It also holds to a creation where there was an intelligent creation prior to Adam, referred to as the pre-Adamite earth.
The Bible only addresses the earth from the time of Adam forward (which amounts to around 6000 years thus far).

So, I believe that there were intelligent people prior to the creation of Adam.  I believe that there is evidence of their work on earth today, e.g., the Egyptian Pyramids"

Remember... his vote counts just as much as yours.