A recent study has revealed that early Homo sapiens migrated to Eurasia more than 70,000 years ago when most of the continent was inhabited by Neanderthals.

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Scientifically known, Neanderthals are a hominin species that shared a common ancestry with us and lived separately for nearly half a million years.

The study indicated that when modern humans arrived in Eurasia during the late Pleistocene era, they encountered Neanderthals who carried traces of human DNA.

Scientists have discovered that some early Homo sapiens first entered Eurasia more than 250,000 years ago, long before the earliest evidence of the presence of modern humans on the continent.

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Fossil records have shown that our human species evolved in Africa 300,000 years ago, while scientists analyzed a broad range of modern genomes from 180 individuals representing 12 genetically diverse population groups in countries such as Cameroon, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Botswana.

Researchers compared the genes of these individuals with the Neanderthal genome, who lived in the Altai Mountains of Russia about 120,000 years ago.

The study concluded that Neanderthal DNA was found in all the tested populations, indicating its presence in Africa.

Scientists noted that most Neanderthal-like DNA did not originate from Neanderthals but rather from contemporary humans who had previously migrated from Africa to Eurasia.