Generations of Scientists Have Debated Whether the Neandertals Were Ancestral

Generations of scientists have debated whether the Neandertals were ancestral to modern Europeans. The current prevailing view, which denies the ancestry, proposes that

A) Neandertals died out because they retained too many australopithecine characteristics that were poorly adapted to the northern latitudes.
B) Neandertals migrated eastward through Siberia and into the Americas until they died out.
C) H. erectus killed off the Neandertals even prior to the emergence of anatomically moderns humans (AMHs) .
D) H. erectus split into separate groups, one ancestral to the Neandertals, the other ancestral to AMHs, who first reached Europe around 100,000 B.P., long before Neandertals.
E) modern humans evolved in Africa and eventually colonized Europe, displacing the Neandertals there.