Modern humans reached westernmost Europe 5,000 years earlier than previously known

Modern humans arrived in westernmost Europe 41,000 - 38,000 years ago, about 5,000 years earlier than previously known, according to an international team of researchers that discovered stone tools used by modern humans dated to the earlier time period in a cave near the Atlantic coast of central Portugal. The tools document the presence of modern humans at a time when Neanderthals were thought to be present in the region.