Iran has been a bridge for human societies in prehistoric times, especially in the
Paleolithic era, from around 2 million years ago. Various archaeological evidences
have been reported from all over Iran about the presence of various human
groups in the geographical area. The oldest site that has been known in Iran so far
is Qaleh Kurd cave, in Avaj section, located in Qazvin province. The history of
archaeological discoveries in Qaleh Kurd cave goes back to the beginning of the
activity of the joint delegation of Iran and France in 2017. The result of four
seasons of field work of the joint delegation of Iran and France in this cave (1397-
1402) was the discovery and recording of more than thousands of cultural finds
(including human remains, animal bones and stone tools). A 175,000-year-old
deciduous tooth attributed to a Neanderthal child (currently on display in the
Qazvin Museum) is one of the most important discoveries of this site, which,
taking into account the mentioned age, is the oldest physical evidence of a type of
human in Iran. The latest dating of the layers excavated in the Qaleh Kurd cave
indicates an age of more than 455,000 years, which has made this area the oldest
human settlement in the Iranian plateau. I was born in 1974 in Tehran. I got my BA and MA in Biology (Zoology) and in the year 2000 I started my education at the Arizona State University under the supervision of Prof. Donald Johanson and Prof. Geoff Clark. I received my Ph.D. in 2006 on the facial morphology of Neanderthals and then moved to the University of Alberta to work on the Baikal Archaeology Project in my Postdoc doing ancient DNA analysis. Later I fulfilled another Postdoc position within University of Oxford on Bioarchaeology of the Salt men project. Since the year 2007 I have been working in the department of archaeology in Tarbiat Modares University. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx