TEHRAN -- A team of Iranian archaeologists working at the Gandab ancient cemetery near the city of Semnan have unearthed skulls of various shapes during the third phase of excavations, which is currently underway at the site.

The team discovered dolichocephalic (long skulls), mesocephalic (medium skulls), and brachycephalic (short-headed or broad skulls).

“Humans are classified based on the shapes of their skulls, which determine the race of the ethnic groups living in a certain region. We discovered humans with long skulls, medium skulls, and short-headed (skulls), which raise many questions for us,” team director Farzad Foruzanfar told the Persian service of CHN on Tuesday.

“A variety of races is rarely seen in a cemetery, so the Gandab cemetery is an exceptional ancient graveyard of our country,” he added.

The Gandab cemetery, which is located 50 kilometers northeast of the city of Semnan, dates back to the first millennium BC.

“We began the third phase of excavations in order to study the various styles of burials and to determine the size of the cemetery. The cemetery was much wider than we originally thought, so we made numerous trenches, which led us to the graves with different burial styles,” Foruzanfar explained.

These new discoveries changed the team’s ordering of the graves and classification of the burial types in the cemetery, he noted.

The team has discovered skeletons buried in squatting and supine positions in graves of various construction, he added.