Until now, we only had fragments of these cousins. Now we have face. Studying our evolutionary development and our sister-species is one of my favorite aspects of archeology. We’re constantly developing new information.
Side note: look up the initial presentation of Homo naledi. The leading archeologist did a phenomenal talk a couple of years ago (I think in December). It was really an exciting presentation. But I’m also pretty nerdy.
Okay, so I agree on the first bit that goes into the “we are special” thing. See Sir PTerry’s bit on Pans Narrans over the egotistical Homo Sapiens.
I would note that every cultures default state was racism and exclusion, much like the notoriously violent Chimps and the less physically violent but no less ruthless rigid social hierachies of bonobos. Europeans do not have an exclusive lock on that.
Note that eastern cultures are still extremely racist and sexist, and were for a very long time before any meaningful direct contact with Europe. Also the original concept that Sapiens exclusively killed off Neanderthalensis (as well as Denisova) is wildly incorrect.
At least for Homo Erectus, we are absolutely smarter but physically weaker than them. Yeah they apparent could build wooden structures, but for tooling they never moved beyond stone hand axes for over a million years. as others have put it: “they early on perfected the hand held stone tool and never moved beyond it.”
It was really a combination of Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus that wiped out most of the other “human” species, not Homo Sapiens.