Anthropologists have long speculated that language originated 60,000 to 80,000 years ago. That is totally counterintuitive to me. It makes no sense to me that the brain and other physiological changes necessary for language preceeded language by some 100,000 to 200,000 years. To me proto language must have come before physical changes. Otherwise we have to explain the evolution of complex physical changes for which there was no need. Selection of mutations that facilitated existing speech makes more sense.
I rather suspect that early Homo Sapiens were not too different than us. Minus the iPhone that is.
They has iPhones. Just looked like stone slabs that's all.
(I concede they may have had a black-and-white display.)