Archaeological surveys led by scientists at Washington University in St. Louis suggest that coastal and underwater cave sites in southern Sicily contain important new clues about the path and fate of early human migrants to the island.

A new study in PLOS ONE reports and assesses the contents of 25 caves and rock shelters, most of them first identified between 1870 and the 1990s but essentially lost to science over time. Study authors also conducted new land and underwater surveys in previously unexplored coastal areas and uncovered three new sites that contain potentially important archaeological sediments.