Ella Al-Shamahi

I think realistically, in times when things weren't so bad, I reckon we would have been more comfortable talking to, you know, these strange other humans, the Neanderthals, when times were maybe more difficult.

Maybe we weren't, but maybe if actually working with them helped us survive, we were.

But I also think within a tribe, there would have been variation because we know that's what we're like.

Some people would have been much more like suspicious of them and other people would be like,

Yeah.

And, you know, I mean, you say chose also.

I mean, okay, so we know...

What we know now for sure is that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were having sex with each other.

We do not know, obviously, what was going on with those interactions.

So I'm always like, they were like, oh, that's the bad boy over there kind of thing.

Was it attraction?

For all we know, it might have been part of a trade agreement.

It might have been very, very practical.

It might have been a bit darker.

We just don't know.

I think there were so many instances of it, though, that it's also possible that it was many different things.

Now, one thing that has been really, really interesting is trying to work out, was it

Like, how was that?

And was it like Neanderthal females or Neanderthal males?

Like, what was that?