A friend loaned me a book about our ancestor human and Neandertal journeys and how come we turned out to be the survivors.
One part with important ramifications for today is that the survivors were the ones who didn’t ‘fit’ so well in the existing conditions. Those who were a very good comfortable fit with the existing conditions failed to adapt when those conditions changed as the climate changed to very different conditions.
The people who had been just managing to survive at the fringes of society adapting being innovative having to manage on little and be resourceful to find ways to survive when all the best bits were taken by the ‘rich and successful’ of their society – these were the people who survived and thrived when conditions changed markedly. They adapted to the new conditions and flourished and went on to become us while the others didn’t make it.