Six Neolithic sites discovered in western Iran

Head of the archaeology team in Razavar valley river, Shokouh Khosravi, said that archaeological surveys in the area were conducted with the purpose of discovering and identifying areas dating back to the Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic eras.

Credit: IRNA

The Public Relations Office of the Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism (RICHT) quoted Khosravi as saying that the research work was conducted in line with a survey on tracing environmental and cultural changes of Central Zagros in the mentioned periods for which later a team of Iranian archaeologists accompanied by archeologists from the Copenhagen University was dispatched to the area.

Archaeologists also analyzed patterns for environmental exploitation and assessed the situation of the northern valleys of the Central Zagros region at that time, she said.

Khosravi went on to say that due to the importance of the area and lack of archaeological information in the region, exploration and sound identification of the areas in the valley that are scattered in the landscape of the region was put on the agenda.

The area under study is located between the city of Sahneh in the east, the city of Kamyaran in Kurdestan Province in the north, and among the folds of the Central Zagros and is a long but not so wide plain which is placed in a mountainous and rugged terrain with long, sometimes high, valleys, she noted.

The archaeologist noted that water resources, the old terraces of the river, the caves and rocky sanctuaries, the fertile plain with good soil and the scattered flint resources on the northern slopes of the highlands in the south of the Razavar valley have turned the area into an ideal place for following up the research subject.

Khosravi added that, owing to the size of the region, the explorations of the current season were limited to the extensive terraces of the Razavar river which were formed during the Holocene period and to the rocky areas of the highland foothills on the southern side of the river. As a result six Neolithic sites were identified.

She stated that one of the sites, based on the excavations and soundings, has more than six aceramic (ie. pre-pottery) Neolithic deposits, and is located on the old river terrace with its rich layers of stone artefacts, shells, snails, charcoal and ash.

She further remarked that exploration and identification of a number of caves and rocky sanctuaries in the northern section of the highlands of the southern basin resulted in no finds as all the caves were rocky and devoid of any cultural artefacts since most of them were not formed until after the Pleistocene period.

Source: Islamic Republic News Agency - IRNA [September 19, 2018]