Neanderthals
Starting from around 300,000 BCE, and up until 25,000 BCE, the Homo Neanderthalis appeared, evolving a thicker fur and better adaptation to the cold. Like the Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon men are known to us as "cave-men," because their remains are found in caves; but there is no proof that these were their sole dwelling place. The distribution of their fossils suggests that they fought for many decades, perhaps centuries, a war with the Neanderthals for the possession of Europe; so old is the conflict between Germany and France. At all events, Neanderthal Man disappeared (despite having higher cranial capacity); Cro-Magnon Man (being a bit taller) survived, and became the chief progenitor of the modern western European, and laid the bases of that civilization which we inherit today.
Source: Durant, Will, The Story of Civilization, Vol. 1: Our Oriental Heritage, A history of civilization in Egypt and the Near East to the Death of Alexander, and in India, China, and Japan from the beginning. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954.
Image by Tim Evanson under CC BY-SA 4.0 license
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!