Saudi Arabia discovers "world's oldest human bone"

A picture taken on June 28, 2016 in the Mediterranean coastal Israeli city of Ashkelon shows a skeleton discovered at the excavation site of the first Philistine cemetery ever found.

Saudi Arabia announced its discovery of the "world's oldest human bone" in Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia, Al Arabiya local news reported on Thursday.

The bone is the middle part of the middle finger of a human being believed to have lived 90,000 years ago, rendering it the oldest human trace found to date in the Arabian Peninsula, Al Arabiya said.

The Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, which announced the find, said the bone was discovered during excavations at Tayma, where a large oasis exists with a long history of habitation.

The discovery was made by a joint research team of Saudi archaeologists and experts from Oxford University.

The team is part of the Green Arabia Project, a Saudi-British survey and excavation undertaking aiming to perform several environmental and archaeological studies of various historical sites in Saudi Arabia.