INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
reported on Tuesday.Evidence found by the team co-led by Iranian archaeologist Hamed Vahdati and French paleoanthropologist Gilles Berillon,
suggests that Qal-e Kord Cave, situated in Avaj county of Qazvin province, is the oldest human settlement in Iran discovered so far.As the
45,000 years old, so electron spin resonance (ESR) and uranium/thorium methods were used instead, ILNA quoted Vahdati as saying.According to
preliminary results, the cave is over 400,000 years old, making it the oldest human settlement in the country, he added.Stone tools found in
this cave, along with the mentioned age, indicate that the cave was occupied by other human species before the Neanderthal man, such as
and rhinoceros have been identified in the animal remains found in the cave, he mentioned.Last year, the tourism ministry announced that a
fossilized tooth, previously found in the cave, could date back 100,000 years.The organ was examined in two laboratories in France and the
United States, and the results of radiocarbon dating experiments showed that it relates to the oldest-known Neanderthal civilization in
Iran.In November 2018, the first season of the joint Iran-France archeological exploration led to the discovery of over 6,000 cultural
It also yielded bone remains of horses, deer, bears, and many stone tools belonging to the Middle Paleolithic period (between 200,000 to
40,000 years ago).In the second season of the project in 2019, archaeologists discovered the remains of a horse, which they believed to be
hunted by Neanderthals in the cave.A 2019 study published in the Journal of Human Evolution suggests that Neanderthals were roaming at the
Iranian Zagros Mountain sometimes between 40 to 70 thousand years ago.Until the late 20th century, Neanderthals were regarded as
genetically, morphologically, and behaviorally distinct from living humans
However, more recent discoveries about this well-preserved fossil Eurasian population have revealed an overlap between living and archaic
humans.Neanderthals lived before and during the last Ice Age of the Pleistocene in some of the most unforgiving environments ever inhabited
They developed a successful culture, with a complex stone tool technology, that was based on hunting, some scavenging, and local plant
