Archaeologists find 1.8-million-year-old human tooth in Georgia

Archaeologists in Georgia have found a 1.8-million-year-old tooth belonging to an early human species.

The scientists say the find cements the region as home to one of the earliest prehistoric archaic human settlements in Europe, possibly anywhere outside of Africa, Deutsche Welle  reports.

The National Research Center of Archaeology and Prehistory of Georgia reported on Thursday that scientists discovered the tooth near the village of Orozmani, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.

Both stone tools and animal remains were found earlier on the territory of the Orozmani archaeological monument, but this is the first time that the remains of Homo erectus were found there.

Orozmani is located near the town of Dmanisi, where human skulls dated to 1.8-million years old were found in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Dmanisi finds were the world's oldest discovery of its kind outside of Africa and one that changed scientists' understanding of early human evolution and migration patterns.