How does Christianity explain Cave men? They were obviously not human, yet similar.?

Im Christian, its not that hard to understand that people are constantly (evolving) changing for the better. We are not covered fur like apes you say, well "The lord giving and the lord taker away". Gods way of explaining adaptation.

God made man in his own image. God creates. Name any other creature on this earth that creates? Only mankind has this ability.

Cavemen were made up by poor archeology.

when Christianity is faced with something that contradicts claims made in the bible, the standard response is to conveniently explain away the problem by calling it "symbolic". That is an absolute cop-out in my eyes.

I'm not saying "God" does or does not exist, but that is different from saying whether or not a religion is true or false. Regardless of that, "God" is not needed to explain how evolution and adaptation works. We have a perfectly sensible and straightforward model for that - random genetic mutations, the ones which are not a disadvantage to the organism being the ones that tend to survive. If there is a "God", then there is no reason to think "he" is anything like the picture that Christianity paints of "him".

This does, however, go against the creation story etc., which is very good grounds for dismissing Christianity as false. I know it's hard to accept at first. I was raised in a catholic household, and I didn't really start to question it until my mid to late teens, which was the time when I was starting to get a formal scientific education. That allowed me to let blind/irrational beliefs to go out of the window, but the church conditions you to feel guilty about it.

They probably died out either naturally in a big event or due to competition with humans.