Wezmeh
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The Wezmeh Cave is an archaeological site near Islamabad Gharb, western
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, around southwest of the capital
Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
. The site was discovered in 1999 and excavated in 2001 by a team of Iranian archaeologists under the leadership of Dr.
Kamyar Abdi Kamyar Abdi ( fa, کامیار عبدی; born 1969) is an Iranian archaeologist. He is the editor of the Iranian ''Journal of Archaeology and History'', a research associate at the Iranian Center for Research on Humanities and Cultural Studies, a ...
. Wezmeh cave was re-excavated by a team under direction of
Fereidoun Biglari Fereidoun Biglari ( fa, فریدون بیگلری) () is an Iranian archaeologist and a museum curator. Career Fereidoun Biglari is co-founder and head of the Paleolithic department in National Museum of Iran which established in 2001. He is ...
in 2019.


Late Pleistocene animals

Large numbers of animal fossil remains have been discovered so far. The earliest and the latest dates obtained on animal bones are 70,000 years BP and 11,000 years BP, respectively. The animal remains belong to red fox, spotted hyena, brown bear, wolf, lion, leopard, wild cat, equids, rhinoceros, wild boar, deer, aurochs, wild goat and sheep etc. The faunal remains were studied by Marjan Mashkour and her colleagues at the
Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...
in Paris and osteological department of
National Museum of Iran The National Museum of Iran ( fa, موزهٔ ملی ایران ) is located in Tehran, Iran. It is an institution formed of two complexes; the Museum of Ancient Iran and the Museum of Islamic Archaeology and Art of Iran, which were opened in 1937 ...
.


Human remains

Pleistocene Several fragmented human bones and teeth were discovered in the site. Among these human remains one tooth studied in detail by Paleoanthropologists such as
Erik Trinkaus Erik Trinkaus (born December 24, 1948) is a paleoanthropologist specializing in Neandertal and early modern human biology and human evolution. Trinkaus researches the evolution of the species ''Homo sapiens'' and recent human diversity, focusing ...
. Wezmeh 1, also known as Wezmeh Child, represented by an isolated unerupted human maxillary right premolar tooth (P3 or possibly P4) of an individual between 6–10 years old. It is relatively large compared with both Holocene and Late Pleistocene P3 and P4. Later Researchers analyzed it by non-destructive gamma spectrometry that resulted in a date of around 25,000 years BP (
Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coin ...
). But later analysis showed that the gamma spectrometry dates the date was the minimum age and the tooth is substantially older. Endostructural features and quantified crown tissue proportions and semilandmark-based geometric morphometric analyses of the enamel-dentine junction aligns it closely with
Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...
s and shows that it is distinct from the fossil and extant modern human pattern. Therefore it is the first direct evidence of the Neanderthal presence in the Iranian Zagros. Given that the cave was a carnivore den during the late Pleistocene, it is probable that the Wezmeh Child was killed, or had its remains scavenged, by carnivores who used the cave as a den. Holocene A human
metatarsal bone The metatarsal bones, or metatarsus, are a group of five long bones in the foot, located between the tarsal bones of the hind- and mid-foot and the phalanges of the toes. Lacking individual names, the metatarsal bones are numbered from the ...
fragment has also been analyzed and dated to the
Neolithic period The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
, about 9000 years ago. The DNA from this bone fragment shows that it is from a distinct genetic group, which was not known to scientists before. He belongs to the Y-DNA haplogroup G2b, specifically its branch G-Y37100, and mitochondrial haplogroup J1d6. He had brown eyes, relatively dark skin, and black hair, although Neolithic Iranians carried reduced pigmentation-associated alleles in several genes and derived alleles at 7 of the 12 loci, showing the strongest signatures of selection in ancient Eurasians. Isotopic analysis showed the man's diet included cereals, a sign that he had learned how to cultivate crops. This cave site was sporadically used by later
Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and  ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...
groups of the region, who used it as pen for their herds. This cave was listed as an archaeological and paleontological site on the National Register of Historic Sites (17843) in 2006.


External links

* Donsmaps (March. 2021)

"Neanderthal child from Wezmeh Cave"


References

*Abdi, K., F. Biglari, S. Heydari,2002
Islamabad Project 2001. Test Excavations at Wezmeh Cave
Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan.34, 171-194. * * * *Monchot, H., Mashkour, M., Biglari, F., & Abdi, K. (2019). The Upper Pleistocene brown bear (Carnivora, Ursidae) in the Zagros: Evidence from Wezmeh Cave, Kermanshah, Iran. In Annales de Paléontologie (p. 102381). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annpal.2019.102381 * * *Zanolli, Clément, Fereidoun Biglari, Marjan Mashkour, Kamyar Abdi, Herve Monchot, Karyne Debue, Arnaud Mazurier, Priscilla Bayle, Mona Le Luyer, Hélène Rougier, Erik Trinkaus, Roberto Macchiarelli. (2019). A Neanderthal from the Central Western Zagros, Iran. Structural reassessment of the Wezmeh 1 maxillary premolar. Journal of Human Evolution, Vol: 135. {{Navbox prehistoric caves Archaeological sites in Iran Caves of Iran Paleontology Paleolithic Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals Neanderthal fossils Prehistory Neanderthal sites