I read somewhere that we outcompeted Neanderthals in part because we (and "we" now includes a bit of Neanderthal DNA) had global trade even back then.

One human tribe lives near good rocks and trade their spearheads with their neighbours. Another tribe, far away, can make good straight sticks. Despite near-zero communication, those two tribes and all the tribes physically in between them can trade and everybody gets a better spear. Apparently we know this happened because the wood and the rocks from ancient human villages are all from far away.

But the Neanderthals only used local materials. There were also far fewer of them, which could also explain the lack of trade.

I looked for sources and found this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01672...