Let's travel back 50,000 years to the middle Paleolithic period.
We're in a deep limestone cave set in a spectacular landscape.
The steep walls of a rocky gorge rise above a fast flowing river.
A dense primeval forest crowns the cliffside.
This region will one day be called the Dordogne, in a country called France.
But for now, it has no name.
There are no nations, no boundaries, not even villages or man made dwellings.
There is just the land and the creatures who live on it and take shelter within.
This is a time before human beings as we know them, reached Europe.
But there are people here in the cave, recognizably human figures, though their features differ from our own.
Their low foreheads slope back from a prominent ridge at the brow.
Their skulls are elongated, their faces rounded, with large, wide noses and protruding teeth.
Like us, they walk on two legs and have hands with opposable thumbs which allow them to hold and manipulate objects.
Their clothes are made from animal skins.
They carry shaped flints that they use as tools for all kinds of tasks.
Scraping, cutting, slicing, even woodworking.
They have other objects too.
For example, the toe of a giant reindeer, marked with a series of notches.
One day, archaeologists will study remains like this and see in them evidence of symbolic thought and artistic expression.
These are Neanderthals.