The archaeological attributes of behaviour: difference or variability?

Did the Neanderthals evolve into anatomically modern humans, or were they replaced by incoming populations of Homo sapiens sapiens? This is perhaps the most well-known question debated by palaeoanthropologists and archaeologists interested in the period from roughly 250,000 to 30,000 years ago in Eurasia. But while this debate may have attracted most of the media attention, there are other research questions that are at least as worthy of public interest as biological origins.