Ella Al-Shamahi

But I would argue that we actually make our story less remarkable.

Because those other species were incredible.

And if you were to get a lot of paleoanthropologists together in a room, and I mean, we don't agree on much, but if you were to say, all right, like between us and the Neanderthals, who's going to make it?

A lot of us would not be betting on ourselves until right kind of much more recently, shall we say.

Like even Chris, Chris Stringer, is like, yeah, 100,000 years.

He wouldn't have been betting on us.

And so for me, I'm like, if we keep portraying them this scientifically inaccurate way, we actually do our own really remarkable story more of a disservice.

Because how on earth are we the only ones left when the Neanderthals seem to be doing this?

Okay, they seem to be more experienced than us.

Numerous times, they were not going locally extinct, and we were in the same geography sometimes.

In fact, often.

And you just think, right, that's a change in fortune.

So, yes, I think it's kind of important to give them their due.

They were amazing and therefore we must be even more amazing.

Something like that.

Okay, so...

Oh, basically, the reason why I'm like sighing is that the Neanderthals keep getting older, bless them.

And what I mean by that is we used to kind of think, and when I say we used to, I'm really talking like within the last 10 years.

What am I talking about?

It was even more recently than that.