A child’s tooth and some stone tools found in France’s Mandrin cave place our ancestors in Europe far earlier than we thought, living alongside Neanderthals rather than wiping them out.

“The Neanderthals emerged in Europe as far back as 400,000 years ago. The current theory suggests that they went extinct about 40,000 years ago, not long after Homo sapiens arrived on the continent from Africa.

But the new discovery suggests that our species arrived much earlier and that the two species could have coexisted in Europe for more than 10,000 years before the Neanderthals went extinct.”

Fascinating.