Saudi Arabia announced its discovery of the “world’s oldest human bone” in Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia, news media reported on Thursday.

According to the reports, 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, media 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.

Researchers say that they began digging in 2012 and it took nearly four years to find the oldest bone.

The discovery was made under the project named Green Arabia, a Saudi-British survey and excavation undertaking aiming to perform several environmental and archaeological studies of various historical sites in Saudi Arabia.

“The Green Arabia project has studied sites at ancient lakes in the Nafud desert,” Ali Ghabban, head of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, said.