The skull fragment known as Apidima 1 (right) is about 210,000 years old, according to a new analysis. Seen from the rear (middle) and side (left) in a reconstruction, the partial skull’s rounded shape shares a unique feature of modern humans. (Credit: Katerina Harvati, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen)

A scrap of skullcap collected in 1978 and stored for decades in an Athens museum may rewrite the timeline of our species leaving our ancestral African homeland.

A new analysis of the