Tristan Hughes

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Europe.

45,000 years ago.

Two species of humans coexist.

On the one hand, you have our ancestors, early Homo sapiens, who have recently dispersed out of Africa and are now reaching the lands north of the Mediterranean Sea, bringing their own technologies and lifestyles with them.

On the other hand, you have a species that has already been living in Europe for well over 100,000 years.

Robust in their body structure and well accustomed to the colder climates this far north, they are the Neanderthals.

Now we know that early Homo sapiens and Neanderthal groups did interact with each other, and not always violently.

But how they communicated and the nature of these interactions largely remains a mystery.

Could they have exchanged knowledge and ideas?

Could there even have been friendships and alliances between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens?

We know they interbred with one another.

There would have been early humans who had one homo sapien and one Neanderthal parent.

What might that have been like?

It's questions like these that we're going to delve into today.