Neanderthals lived in Europe and western Asia for over 300,000 years. When did they start to share the scene with our own species? A new fossil molar from the site of Grotte Mandrin in France indicates that Homo sapiens made it deep into Neanderthal territory around 51,000-57,000 years ago, about 10,000 years before the earliest consistent modern human presence in Europe. Alternating occupation layers of Neanderthals-Homo sapiens-Neanderthals at this site may point to some interaction between these species. The presence of the modern human molar in a layer with a unique stone tool industry known from other European sites, the Neronian, indicates that it was our species making these tools rather than Neanderthals.

These findings were presented in the journal ScienceAdvances on February 9th, 2022, by Ludovic Slimak and colleagues.