The old evolution debate

[Ghel]

It sounds more like he is separating human the species and Man the culture.

Until a certain point we were simply another "dumb" animal living in nature then something happened and we put a piece of sharpened flint on a stick, lit a fire and started in small ways controlling more of nature than our cousins could.

I think that is about right.

Ok. I can agree with that. Humans are still animals; we're just animals who use tools really well and have languages that are more sophisticated than most other animals.

[Sleepwalker]

our particular branch wasn't as advanced

'Advanced' implies a goal. It implies direction and progress. A species can be more numerous than another, it can reproduce more successfully than another, it can even, veering into dangerous territory here, be more 'fit' than another, as long as you make sure to describe what that 'fitness' entails(generally reproductive success).

It cannot be more advanced than another, unless you're going to posit an example of an ending species for it to advance towards.