Piecing together the story of Europe's earliest settlers is a challenge, largely because relevant human fossils are scarce. On March 12, researchers announced thediscovery of a new fossil from the ...

Piecing together the story of Europe’s earliest settlers is a challenge, largely because relevant human fossils are scarce.

Scientists discovered humans descended from two ancient populations, not one. These groups split 1.5 million years ago.

Modern humans descended from not one, but at least two ancestral populations that drifted apart and later reconnected, long before modern humans spread across the globe.