They/we also are weak and helpless for large portion of early life. Can’t reproduce unless they survive a dozen or so years. And even then pregnancy and child birth are also huge risks to life. This probably really stunted our ability to grow large populations.

Fossil evidence exists pointing towards large eagles scooping up 3-5 year olds. It’s been a long time since we had to think of our toddlers safety the same way we think of a lap dogs.

I feel like it's more to say that, "getting eaten was a legitimate concern" they weren't really the single top of the food chain because there were other animals that would reasonably consider them prey. Cave lions were massive and definitely targeted neanderthals.