there were several other hominids around at that time and it would not have been obvious at this stage that Homo sapiens would one day be the sole surviving human species. The Neanderthals were well established in Europe and the Middle East. The closely related Denisovans roamed across many parts of Asia. We have only discovered the existence of the Denisovans by chance in 2010 due to the genetic sequencing of an ancient finger bone.
