Coexisting

We know that our own species lived alongside other hominins, but what would those interactions have looked like? Would H. sapiens have recognized other hominins as different from them or would they have looked and seen a creature so similar to themselves that differences could be ignored? We can go through some scenarios and the scientific evidence for these meetings to picture it.

Homo Naledi

Recent evidence (as H. naledi was only discovered in 2015) suggests that H. naledi lived at the same time as our own species. It is thought that the species survived until around 236,000 years ago. Whether or not our species interacted with them has yet to be proven. 

Neandertals

We know that anatomically modern humans interacted with neandertals because of DNA. Many of us have neandertal DNA due to cross-breeding. The meeting between these two groups was inevitable as H. sapiens moved into Europe. As the last two remaining hominins the meeting of the two groups would have meant competition for resources, but the DNA evidence shows that the two were capable of living together and didn’t completely see one another as outsiders. 

It’s easy to see why. These renditions created by artist Tom Björkland are based on neandertal morphology seen in fossils and show just how human they would have looked. It is likely that the early members of our species wouldn’t have seen any difference between neandertals and themselves.