And chances are none of them were younger than 80, having lived at a time when there likely was far more wilderness. A lot of species have gone extinct within t

And chances are none of them were younger than 80, having lived at a time when there likely was far more wilderness. A lot of species have gone extinct within the last century, and the author seems to be very careful to include "survived into the recent past" in the hypothesis. A population practicing burial, but not in places that happen to facilitate bone conservation could, in theory, be more invisible to science than some of their ancestors who happened to leave their remains in a preservation hotspot like that cave. But yeah, stories about almost but not quite humans seem to exist everywhere, perhaps fueled by occasional sightings of misfits who got thrown out by their communities and lived on as wandering hermits.