Laos cave fossils prompt rethink of human migration map

Two human bone fragments — from a skull and a leg — have been unearthed in the Tam Pà Ling cave in Laos. The fossils are older than previous finds from the cave and suggest that early modern humans were in the area up to 86,000 years ago. That’s earlier than previously thought, and calls into question hypotheses that Homo sapiens dispersed out of Africa and through Asia in a single rapid event that happened after the ending of a geological period 80,000 years ago.