A study of a handful of 300,000-year-old teeth revealed an ancient human group had a mix of archaic and modern tooth features.

The pig’s mouth revealed its ordinary sharp, tusk-like canines saddled up beside smaller, slightly more human-looking teeth nubs. In theory, a similar process could play out in humans.

Tufts University researchers took material from human and pig teeth and were able to grow a tooth-like structure. They hope their findings could lead to growing living tooth replacements for people.

The layer containing the Homo sapiens child’s tooth spans 56,800 to 51,700 years ago. In different layers, the scientists discovered eight other teeth that belonged to Neanderthals.