The meeting 'Human evolution, migration and history revealed by genetics, immunity and infection', along with the follow-on satellite meeting at the Kavli Centre over the subsequent two days, brought together diverse talents. The aim was to see if new insights could be gained by bringing together those who have interests in the past 50-100 000 years of human history, overlaying the perspectives of palaeogeneticists, anthropologists, human geneticists, pathogen geneticists, immunologists, disease modellers, linguists, immunogeneticists, historians and archaeologists. It rapidly became clear that while all may agree on the broad brush-strokes including 'out-of-Africa' and the general approximations of timelines, diverse approaches may often suggest somewhat different ways of telling the story.