Stone Age Europe was a lonely place to live. An assessment of ancient population sizes suggests a vast swathe of western and central Europe may have been home to no more than 1500 people at any one time.

Our species, Homo sapiens , arrived in Europe about 43,000 years ago . Archaeological evidence, particularly the appearance of distinctive stone tools at multiple sites, suggests these humans rapidly spread across the continent . But it’s an open question exactly how many people lived in Europe at this time.

Now Isabell Schmidt and …