Comment by rao-v

I mostly agree with all of this, but it doesn't really invalidate the horror / tragedy that it really was a lot of war / murder (?) alongside.

FWIW:

It looks like the Neanderthals had javelins as ranged weapons: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-550x/6/1/17

The paper I linked shows that we were in and out of Neanderthal territories (or vice versa) a bunch.

Punctuated equilibrium (is that still in fashion?) suggests that the inbreeding / limited population eras of humanity are when we got a lot of our special capabilities!