Homo erectus

Imagine wolves with knives. These are creatures built for running these would make formidable oppenents and worst of all it could track you down and kill you with these formidable handaxes. It could hunt the formidable gigantopithecus if it wanted too even though it was high on the food chain it wasn't top predator it was preyed upon by scimitar toothed cats and leopards and don't forget bears wolves and tigers. It had competitors like jackals and then rare homo sapiens. It was certainly a big game hunter with anything from rabits to elephants were not safe. It even used rafts. The first fire maker language speaker caring about each other not just offspring decision maker. It was certainly sophisticated.