The difference between humans and most animals, is that animals usually have natural "weapons", by that I mean claws, powerful jaws with sharp teeth, horns, tusks, etc... Humans depend on their intelligence to survive nature, we craft tools, we plan strategies, and that has allowed us to become an ecological force. I mean, lions disappeared from Europe, mammoths went extinct, gorillas and whales are endangered, many apex predators have been sent to the abyss by humanity, despite our innate weakness when compared to them.
Humans really have few "natural" advantages when compared to animals, as far as I know, aside from our intelligence, which is by far the best weapon in nature, we only have a lot of stamina, shoulder made to throw and hurl things, and hands that allow us to be versatile.
So imagine for a moment that when the Homo Sapiens showed up in the world, he had "natural" weapons too, I thought of 3, but feel free to add others, the first being claws, a la wolverine, the second being a very powerful jaw, and the third being higher muscle density, almost as much as a chimp or a gorilla, also, notice humans won't have all three of them at the same time, that be overkill I think, they'd only have one of them.
So if humans had these biological means of defense, how well would we fare on nature, discarding technology and throwing us back to the beginning of the stone, would we be able to become top-notch predators, without having to resort on tools and well-thought strategies? And if we did, how would that affect our technological development, after all, it's said that necessity is the mother of innovation, and if humans didn't need to change to survive, then why change? But then and again humans are curious.