paleoparasitological findings from rodent coprolites dated at 500 ce sassanid era in archeological site of chehrabad(douzlakh), salt mine northwestern iran.

background: in this paper, paleoparasitological findings from rodent excrements ob-tained from chehrabad salt mine archeological site located in northwest of iran are demonstrated and discussed. methods : chehrabad salt mine archeological site located in northwest of iran, dated to the achaemenid (mid 1st mill. bce) and to sassanid (3rd cent. - 7th cent. ce) period, is a unique study area to investigate parasites in the past millenniums in iran. rodent cop-rolites obtained from this archeological site were thoroughly analyzed for parasite eggs using tsp re-hydration technique. results : specimen analyzed were attributed to juvenile and adult rats based on their apparent morphology comparing with the modern dried pellets of muridea family. hel-minth eggs retrieved from two positive pellets were identified as trichosomoides crassi-cauda , syphacia sp. and trichuris sp. conclusion : the present paper discusses the first paleoparasitological findings of ro-dent gastrointestinal helminthes in iran along with possible favorite items to rats in ancient chehrabad salt mine.