Some 60,000 years ago, a wave of early humans ventured out of Africa, spreading to every other corner of the world. These travelers were met by a landscape of hominins vastly different from those they left behind.

The genetic fingerprints of this mixing remain apparent in many populations today. Roughly two percent of the genomes of Europeans and Asians are Neanderthal. Asians also carry additional Denisovan DNA, up to 6 percent in Melanesians. But African populations seemed to have largely been left out of this genetic shakeup.

Now a study, published this week in Cell, presents a striking find: Modern African populations carry more snippets of Neanderthal DNA than once thought, about a third of the amount the team