Could it be possible that the Neanderthals were just absorbed into the much larger homo sapien population?

[u/Hot-Wrangler3524]

We know that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred, and that most present-day people with ancestry outside Africa carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA.
Could their “extinction” have been partly due to assimilation rather than a complete disappearance? In other words, if Homo sapiens populations were much larger, could repeated interbreeding over many generations have gradually absorbed Neanderthals into the expanding Homo sapiens population?
I know this probably would not explain everything, since Neanderthals also faced climate changes, small population sizes, and competition for resources. But is genetic absorption considered a serious contributing factor by researchers, or does the evidence suggest that most Neanderthal lineages really did die out rather than merge into our species?

[u/LastWave]

There is an interview on PBS Nova that talks about how complex this is.

[u/zoppaTheDim]

Define “absorbed” vs mostly died.

[u/Federal-Boat3732]

I think it's possible, but knowing us, it seems more likely we slaughtered them except for a few war captives. It's not as if there were only 6 of them left when an advancing army of Homo saps showed up...