According to a report by the Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, the fossil was discovered in Yawan stone hills, located in a vast prehistoric area in Kermanshah.
Saman Heydari-Guran, the head of the probing team, said the detected object is a milk tooth, belonging to a six-year old Neanderthal kid, which was found along with several stone tools belonging to the Middle Paleolithic period, a period between 125,000 to 40,000 years ago.
According to him, the tooth is the first object excavated in the country with a 100-percent certainty of belonging to the Neanderthals.
Heydari-Guran noted that, using radiocarbon-14 dating technique, the tooth is estimated to date back to 42,000-45,000 years ago. “So, the kid belonged to the Neanderthals with features close to modern humans,” he added.
“The unearthed tooth is among the rare Neanderthal milk teeth found across the world,” the archeologist said.
Similar fossils have previously been found in Spain, France and Germany.
Flanked by mountains in the south and north and plains to the east and west, Kermanshah is home to an ancient civilization with a rich history.
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