ANCIENT IRAN Edited by D. T. POTTS OXFORDOXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford University Press is a department ofthe University of Oxford. Ik furthers the University’ abjectve of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide Oxford New York Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam. ‘Oxford isa registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries, Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2013, All rights reserved. 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Tite: The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran. 1DS266,094 2013 9357-423 2012034686 ISBN 978-0-19-973330-9 35798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paperCHAPTER 3 THE PALEOLITHIC OF IRAN NICHOLAS J. CONARD, ELHAM GHASIDIAN, AND SAMAN HEYDARI-GURAN INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY OF RESEARCH With its geographic position between the Levant and Mesopotamia and the great expanses of Asia, Iran is of critical importance for many questions related to human evolution and the development and spread of Paleolithic cultural innovations. In this context, one issue that arises repeatedly is whether researchers are better served by viewing Iran as a corridor between east and west and north and south, or rather as a large region of autochthonous cultural development. In this review, both these approaches have their strengths as well as their limitations, and in the end we are prob- ably best served by establishing the Paleolithic record of Iran (Fig. 3.1) in its own right before we view it as a donor, receiver, or corridor for human dispersals and cultural innovations. Research into the Paleolithic archaeology of Iran has a long and punctuated history. ‘This history can be organized in: (1) an unstructured period of antiquarian activities; (2) a poorly developed pioneering stage that corresponds roughly to the period between the two world wars; (3) a classic phase between the end of the second world war and the Islamic Revolution; (4) a period beginning in 1979 and corresponding to the early years of the existence of the Islamic Republic of Iran; and (5) a recent phase of more intense research, with many Iranian and international teams conducting fieldwork across nearly the whole country (Smith 1986; Otte et al. 2007; Heydari-Guran 2010; Vahdati Nasab 2011). In 1989, Philip Smith synthesized the state of Paleolithic research in Iran up to the Islamic Revolution in a short monograph which serves as a convenient benchmark for the research community. This publication summarized the state of discourse until the late 1970s, when for all practical purposes Paleolithic fieldwork in Iran stopped for two decades. Most recently Hamed Vahdati Nasab (2011) has addressed the current state of research and summarized the history of research.30 BACKGROUND AND BEGINNINGS FIGURE 3.1 Map of Iran, showing the most important Paleolithic sites and areas cited in the text. Jacques de Morgan (1907) conducted survey alongside the river terraces of Pardameh in Mazandaran province in the early twentieth century and identified Paleolithic arti- facts, but recently Vahdati Nasab has concluded that these finds are more likely ecofacts. Across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan, D. Garrod (1930) had already excavated Zarzi Cave in the late 1920s and documented an important sequence of late Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic deposits. Zarzi today is the type site of the Zarzian, and Garrod’s impor- tant work documented the first well-stratified Paleolithic material from the Zagros and demonstrated the great research potential of the karst landscape of the Zagros for Paleolithic research (Wahida 1975). In the 1930s, Henry Field, accompanied by geolo- gists, led a Paleolithic survey in the Zagros Mountains (Piperno 1972) and excavated a small test trench in Kunji Cave (Fig. 3.2) on the outskirts of Khorramabad in Luristan (Field 1951), ‘The period between the end of the World War II and the Islamic Revolution can be considered the classic phase of Paleolithic research in Iran. Starting in the 1940s, Carlton Coon led excavations at a number of key sites including Hunters’ Cave at the base of Bisotun Mountain in the west central Zagros Mountains and Hotu and Belt Caves in the Mazandaran region, northern Iran and Khunik Cave in Khorasan province, north- eastern Iran (Coon 1951, 1952). Coon’s publication of The Seven Caves in 1957 cap- tured the ambitious spirit and enthusiasm reflected in this early fieldwork. Starting in the early 1950s, Ralph and Rose Solecki conducted survey and a series of importantTHE PALEOLITHIC OF IRAN 31 FIGURE 3.2 Lithic artifacts from Kunji Cave (modified after Baumler and Speth 1993) excavations at Shanidar in Iraqi Kurdistan. Like the earlier work by Garrod in the Zagros, the Soleckis’ work at Shanidar had major ramifications for research in Iran and, as happened a generation earlier with Garrod, Solecki’s definition of the Baradostian culture of the early Upper Paleolithic was quickly adopted for similar assemblages from the Zagros Mountains of Iran. At this time Charles McBurney (1950, 1968, 1969) began fieldwork in Iran that led to excavations at Ali Tappeh and Keyaram Caves in the north- eastern Alborz Mountains and the two rock-shelter sites of Houmian and Bard Spid in the Kuh-e Dasht region. As an offshoot of Braidwood’: interdisciplinary research on the origins of Neolithic societies, researchers from the University of Chicago, including Hole, Howe, Flannery, and others led large-scale, systematic surveys and excavations. The work of Hole and32 BACKGROUND AND BEGINNINGS Flannery (1967) in particular represents one of the best examples of problem-driven Paleolithic research during the heyday of the “new archaeology” Much of this research served as a highly visible example of how archaeological methods could be applied to collect reliable data and formulate models explaining long-term patterns of cultural evo- lution from the earliest occupation of Iran until the rise of the region's great civilizations. Even today this research remains highly relevant. Other scholars, including Mortensen, Piperno, Smith, Rosenberg, Speth, and Ikeda, made major contributions to Paleolithic research in Iran, and made Iran as a whole and the Zagros Mountains in particular a key region of Paleolithic research. ‘This unusually productive period of research came to a sudden end with the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the ousting of the leading political figures, who had been very open to allowing Western scientists to conduct research in Iran. During the decades immediately following the revolution, publications continued to appear on the collec tions recovered during fieldwork in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, but new field projects by non-Iranian researchers did not begin until around the start of the new millennium, Since around 2000, Paleolithic research in Iran has gradually intensified. Although the last few years have seen a decline in fieldwork in connection with restrictive policies regarding permits and political tensions in the region, the first decade of the twenty-first century will no doubt be considered something of a renaissance for Paleolithic archae- ology, and many international collaborative projects and Iranian excavations and sur- veys have taken place. At the same time a generation of young archaeologists in their twenties and thirties left Iran to receive training abroad and earned graduate degrees on Paleolithic topics, and thereby became the first Iranian experts on the Paleolithic. Similar developments occurred in the allied fields of biological anthropology and human evolution. During the last decade researchers from Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, the United States, and other countries joined Iranian colleagues to conduct important fieldwork in many parts of the country (Otte et al. 2007). This work has highlighted the traditional research areas of the Zagros, but also covered in varying degrees of intensity nearly all parts of the country. ‘This chapter is organized chronologically, and as we move through the major periods of the Paleolithic, we shall try to highlight important work that took place during all of the phases of research as well as accenting the current state of knowledge and cur- rent research questions. In this chapter we use new environmental classifications of the Iranian plateau in order to better characterize the geo-ecological framework of early human settlement systems (Heydari-Guran 2010). LOWER PALEOLITHIC While much of southwestern Asia, including most notably Israel, Jordan, and Syria, have a rich record of research on the Lower Paleolithic and many important stratified sites from this period, to date not a single, well-documented, stratified Lower Paleolithic siteTHE PALEOLITHIC OF IRAN 33 is known in Iran. Without exception, all of the sites with typologically Lower Paleolithic finds are surface sites lacking organic preservation and reliable means of dating the lithic artifacts recovered there, The sites are invariably reworked and unable to provide the meaningful spatial information needed for a contextual analysis of past human behavior. Thus, most work until now has mainly addressed the basic question of whether or not an assemblage can be attributed to the Lower Paleolithic. While this kind of simple question is fairly straightforward in regions with a rich Lower Paleolithic record—where the pres- ence of clear Acheulean handaxes or archaic flake assemblages can reliably be attributed to the Lower Paleolithic—in Iran, where such comparative material from reliable contexts in stratified sites is absent, most attributions to the Lower Paleolithic are based on assump- tions about the Paleolithic cultural sequence in Iran and on geological observations. In 1986, when Smith published his review of the Paleolithic in Iran, the only sites he could attribute to the Lower Paleolithic were in the alluvial deposits of the Kashafrud Basin in northeastern Iran, where Ariai and ‘Thibault found “pebble tools” at about sixty sites (Smith 1986: 15). There are at least two other surface lithic collections in southeast- ern Iran that Hume reported as Lower Paleolithic, naming the local industry “Ladizian” (Hume 1976). Subsequent research has led to the discovery of several more sites with Lower Paleolithic artifacts. ‘The river terrace site of Ganj Par, reported by Biglari and Shidrang in 2006, is one of those promising Lower Paleolithic localities. It yielded about 140 lithic artifacts including core scrapers, bifaces, large flakes, and hammer stones. Based on the use of volcanic rocks as raw material, the high frequency of core-choppers, the presence of discoid and anvil flaking, along with other methods, Biglari and Shidrang argued that the assemblages from Ganj Par resemble Early and Middle Acheulian assem- blages elsewhere in western Asia (Biglari and Shidrang 2006: 166). This region also boasts the only cave with Lower Paleolithic evidence in the form ofa flake-based indus- try (Biglari and Shidrang 2006: 166). In western Azerbaijan traces of Lower Paleolithic occupation have been discovered on the river terraces of the Mahabad River. The Lower Paleolithic artifacts at Shiwatoo include Acheulean chopper-cores, along with bipolar on anvil flaking technique, large flakes, and pebble tools (Jaubert et al. 2006). ‘The only indication of Lower Paleolithic in the southern Zagros Mountains is the open air site of Baba Guri. This site was discovered by the joint Tubingen-Iranian Stone Age research project during its Paleolithic survey in the southern Zagros Mountains. ‘The lithic assemblage with archaic technological features consists of inclined and plat- form cores, blades, flakes, and a core tablet. A series of isolated Lower Paleolithic finds have also been reported from different parts of the country including Gakia (Braidwood et al. 1961); Quri Gol in the north- west ecozone of Iran (Singer and Wymer 1978); and Pal Barik in the west-central Zagros Mountains (Mortensen 1993). The latter yielded one handaxe and thirty-one choppers and chopping tools. Mortensen assigned the assemblage to the Zagros Acheulian. In dat- ing the assemblage on the basis of the geomorphological setting of the site, Mortensen concluded that it might be younger than 130,000 BP. He also drew a typological com- parison between the lithic tools at Pal Barik and those from Barda Balka, located in the northern Zagros of Iraq, and based on the typological parallels he estimated the site was34 BACKGROUND AND BEGINNINGS between 100,000 and 80,000 years old (Mortensen 1993), which would be an unexpect- edly young age for Lower Paleolithic artifacts. MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC ‘The first Middle Paleolithic sites on the Iranian Plateau were discovered in the rock shel- ter sites of the Kermanshah and Khorramabad valleys of the west-central Zagros. In 1951, Carlton Coon excavated the Hunter's Cave in the Bisotun region of Kermanshah where he recovered a large number of lithic artifacts assigned to the Zagros Mousterian (Coon 1951, 1957; Dibble 1984), He also excavated the Middle Paleolithic cave site of ‘Tamtameh close to Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran (Coon 1951). Bruce Howe con- ducted an excavation in 1959 at Kobeh Cave in the Kermanshah valley, which also yielded Middle Paleolithic artifacts (Smith 1986). In the 1960s, Frank Hole and Kent Flannery began a series of Paleolithic investigations in the Khorramabad valley c.200 km south of Kermanshah (Hole and Flannery 1967) They conducted test excavation at Kunji and Ghamari Caves and Gar Arjeneh rock shel- terand addressed the nature of the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic. In the Hulailan region in the west-central Zagros P. Mortensen conducted one of the few prehistoric investigations on the Iranian plateau through systematic surface survey (Mortensen 1974, 1975). The Hulailan Paleolithic survey resulted in the discovery of twenty-four sites from the Lower through Epipaleolithic periods. ‘The Middle Paleolithic of the Hulailan valley reflected denser occupation than that of the Lower Paleolithic, Mortensen recorded eight sites with Middle Paleolithic finds, including the five open-air sites (Cheshmeh Kahreh, Sar Sarab, site no. 7, Saimarreh E, and Saimarreh F) and three rock shelters (Ghar Huchi, Ghar Villa, and Ghar Sefid). The Middle Paleolithic indus- tries of these sites have much in common with those of Bisotun, Kunji, and Warwasi Caves in the west-central Zagros, which places them in the Zagros Mousterian. The Hulailan assemblages include Levallois points, flakes, and cores, as well as discoidal cores. Diverse side scrapers, end scrapers, and Mousterian points are abundant. As at Kunji Cave, backed knives and notched and denticulated flakes occur in Hulailan, while blade production is infrequent, as is the case at Bisotun Cave. The Mousterian artifacts of the Hulailan valley were mostly discovered near rivers or in the western part of the val- ley in an area with many rock shelters close to springs and streams (Mortensen 1993). In 1966, P.E. L. Smith conducted test excavation in the cave site of Ghar-e Khar, in the Bisotun region of Kermanshah province, that yielded material dating from the Middle Paleolithic through the Islamic period. ‘The base level of the excavated area produced typical Mousterian artifacts such as asymmetrical side scrapers and thick retouched blades. The Middle Paleolithic artifacts from this cave resemble the ones recovered from the neighboring site of Bisotun Cave (Smith 1967). In the southern Zagros, the first evidence of Middle Paleolithic occupation was discov- ered by W. M. Sumner near Jahrom. ‘This site, along with the Eshkaft-e Ghad-e Barm-eTHE PALEOLITHIC OF IRAN 35 Shur Cave on the edge of Lake Neyriz, near Shiraz, yielded a Levallois Middle Paleolithic industry (Piperno 1972). Rosenberg (1988) surveyed the Marv Dasht area and docu- mented six Middle Paleolithic sites associated with Levallois Zagros Mousterian mate- rial among the thirty-one sites recorded. There are several more Paleolithic sites in the southern Zagros but they are isolated, like the one discovered by Vita-Finzi on the Persian Gulf coast (Vita-Finzi and Copeland 1980). In early 2000, Iranian archaeologists conducted a Paleolithic survey in the Khorramabad valley, revisiting the Paleolithic sites discovered by Hole and Flannery and identifying several more sites as well (Roustaei et al. 2004). Biglari (2001) has reported three more Middle Paleolithic rock shelter sites in Bisotun Mountain, one of which, Mar ‘Tarik (Fig. 3.3), has been excavated by a joint Iranian-French team. The lithic industry there is very similar to the industries previously documented at excavated sites in the west-central Zagros and is characterized by the use of raw materials from the nearby vicinity, Levallois flaking technique, and a high proportion of retouched tools domi- nated by points, elongated points, convergent scrapers, and déjetés or double scrapers with frequently sharpened edges (Jaubert et al. 2006). In 2009, Roustaei (2010) conducted a survey in the Bakhtiyari region of the south-central Zagros Mountains, identifying more than 160 localities associated with lithic artifacts, predominantly of Middle Paleolithic origin. Among the Middle Paleolithic localities are at least five large knapping areas with thousands of artifacts scat- tered on the surface. The lithic assemblages there are characterized by Levallois technol- ogy associated with different kinds of scrapers and points Elsewhere in the Zagros, scattered Paleolithic investigations have resulted in the dis- covery of Paleolithic sites such as Jam-o-Riz (Dashtizadeh 2008) and six rock-shelter sites in Dasht-e Rostam in western Fars (Heydari-Guran 2010). In northern Iran, the joint French-Iranian Paleoanthropological Programme (FIPP) conducted survey and excavation in the central Alborz Mountains. Their investigations documented two Middle Paleolithic open-air sites at Moghak and Otchounak in the southern foothills of the Alborz. ‘These are characterized by a Mousterian industry but one that was less elaborated than the Mousterian industry of Keyaram Cave and the Zagros Mountain sites (Berillon et al. 2007). In addition, new archaeological investigations in the central desert basin of Iran have refuted the old view that Middle Paleolithic occupation was found only in the Zagros Mountains. Recent discoveries in new regions such as Takht-e Solayman, Arisman, Mirak, Qaleh Bozi, and Kashan, all of which lie outside the Zagros Mountains, are changing our image of Middle Paleolithic settlement. ‘These sites are located in a vari- ety of lacustrine, dune field, and travertine spring-fed Quaternary sedimentary envi- ronments (Heydari-Guran et al. forthcoming). ‘The Takht-e Solayman area, where two surface Middle Paleolithic localities have been reported, has one of the greatest concen- trations of travertine spring-fed deposits in Iran. Chakhmag Li is a large, homogenous chert outcrop, associated with travertine terraces, At 2300 masl, this is one of the highest Middle Paleolithic localities in Iran (Heydari-Guran et al. 2009). In general, the assem- blage of Chakmag Li was based on the flake production. Most of the cores are inclined36 BACKGROUND AND BEGINNINGS FIGURE 3.3 Lithic artifacts from Mar Tarik Cave (modified after Jaubert et al. 2006). Levallois flake, blade, and point cores. Flakes also form a large component of the assem- lage and include Levallois and non-Levallois debitage. The average sizes of the flakes and their technological features conform to the cores, confirming their contemporane- ty (Heydari-Guran et al. 2009: 113). Mirak is the largest Middle Paleolithic open-air site on the central plateau of Iran. Archaeological survey there has yielded a large lithic assemblage dominated by LevalloisTHE PALEOLITHIC OF IRAN 37 technology associated with different kinds of scrapers, Mousterian points, and discoidal cores, The presence of blades may indicate occupation in the later phases of the Paleolithic as well (Rezvani and Vahdati Nasab 2010). A recently discovered cluster of shelter sites includes Qaleh Bozi, 25 km south-southwest of Isfahan, one of the few shelter sites on the central plateau with Middle Paleolithic artifacts (Biglari et al. 2009). In contrast to the Middle Paleolithic industries of the open-air sites on the central plateau, which are domi- nated by Levallois technology, the lithic industry of Qaleh Bozi yielded only a small number of Levallois pieces. Unifacial and bifacial points, including foliate points, comprised a large portion of these assemblages, distinguishing them from contemporary sites on the Iranian plateau, Side scrapers; heavily retouched, notched and denticulated pieces; and small-sized artifacts show close resemblances to the Zagros Mousterian industry (Biglari etal. 2009) A number of Paleolithic localities have been discovered in a formerly lacustrine environment on the north-central plateau (Djamali et al. 2006, Conard et al. 2007). Iypologically the Middle Paleolithic artifacts of Zavyeh (Fig. 3.4) are characterized by FIGURE 3.4 Lithic artifacts from Zavyeh (modified after Heydari-Guran 2010).38 BACKGROUND AND BEGINNINGS points and scrapers. ‘The points are mostly retouched Levallois points. There are also some Levallois flakes that have been made into points through heavy retouch. The num- ber of retouched pieces, including scrapers, is high (Heydari-Guran etal. forthcoming) ‘There are at least two areas alongside the eastern Karkas Mountains in the interior desert basin where Middle Paleolithic stone artifacts have been found. The first includes several travertine formations close to Kashan (Biglari 2004) and the second com- prises the dune field sites of Qaleh Gusheh and Holabad, and a travertine deposit near Arisman, Over the course of two seasons of survey in the Qaleh Gusheh area in 2004 and 2005, eight localities with Middle Paleolithic artifacts were recognized amongst sixteen Paleolithic sites (Conard et al. 2009; Heydari-Guran 2010; Heydari-Guran and Ghasidian 2011). Of these, the Holabad travertine sites yielded the most homogenous Middle Paleolithic assemblages. These are characterized by large number of Levallois and discoidal cores, Levallois flakes, blades and points, and different kinds of scrap- ers (Heydari-Guran et al. forthcoming). The Middle Paleolithic industry from dune field sites in Ghaleh Gusheh, like nearby Holabad, is dominated by Levallois technol- ogy. Retouched Levallois flakes and points are abundant among the assemblages there (Heydari-Guran et al. forthcoming; Heydari-Guran and Ghasidian 2011). Middle Paleolithic sites have also been reported around Minab, near the Straits of Hormuz (Dashtizadeh forthcoming). There, lithic artifacts from the open-air sites of Hasanlangi and Gourband 2are characterized by Levallois technology. In general, the “Zagros Mousterian” remains the main Middle Paleolithic cultural group so far defined, but clearly, as Zavyeh and other sites show, the Middle Paleolithic of Iran is much more complex and interesting than was thought until recently (Heydari-Guran et al. forthcoming). UPPER PALEOLITHIC During the Upper and Epipaleoltihic periods the Iranian plateau underwent important changes with respect to both the number of sites occupied and the variety of the lithic industry. The Soleckis named the early Upper Paleolithic assemblage of the northern Zagros the “Baradostian” and the Epipaleolithic “Zarzian” (Hole and Flannery 1967, Olszewski 1993, 1993b). However, to date no sites have been identified with a continu- ‘ous Paleolithic sequence that covers the transition from the Middle to the Upper and the Upper to the Epipaleolithic. ‘The first late Paleolithic industries in Iran were recovered by C. Coon in Hotu and Belt Caves on the Caspian Sea shore (Coon 1951). The lithic artifacts from these caves were dated typologically to the late Epipaleolithic period. During their mission to Khorramabad in 1960, Hole and Flannery conducted several excavations that revealed Upper and Epipaleolithic artifacts. In Gar Arjeneh, Pa Sangar rock shelter, and Yafteh Cave (Fig. 3.5) they recovered Baradostian and Zarzian industries (Hole and Flannery 1967). The Baradostian lithic industry is dominated by blade production. CharacteristicTHE PALEOLITHIC OF IRAN 39 FIGURE 3.5 Lithic artifacts from Yafteh Cave (modified after Bordes and Shidrang 2009) tools include slender points, backed blades and bladelets, twisted bladelets with various kinds of light retouch, end scrapers, discoidal scrapers, side scrapers, and burins (Hole 1970). Yafteh Cave was later reexcavated by M. Otte, who recovered the same indus~ try as Hole and Flannery (Otte et al. 2007; Bordes and Shidrang 2009). Emphasizing its purported Aurignacian lithic elements and perforated marine shell beads, Otte and col- leagues identified the industry of Yafteh Cave as belonging to the Zagros Aurignacian, with dates as far back as c.40,000 cal. BP. ‘A Baradostian industry was also identified by D. I. Olszewski in the rock-shelter site of Warwasi (Fig. 3.6) in the Kermanshah region (Olszewski 1993a). Later, because of the presence of what she considered Aurignacian elements, Olszewski and Dibble classified40 BACKGROUND AND BEGINNINGS FIGURE 3.6 Baradostian artifacts from Warwasi Rockshelter (modified after Olszewski and Dibble 1994). these assemblages as Zagros Aurignacian instead of Baradostian (Olszewski and Dibble 1994, 2006). In the Hulailan valley, Mortensen documented fifteen sites with Late Paleolithic arti- facts (mixed Upper and Epipaleolithic) (Mortensen 1993, 1974, 1975) but the assem- blages at these sites made it impossible to link the earlier Mousterian to the Upper Paleolithic sequence. Baradostian elements were possibly present among the Hulailan assemblages but they were difficult to distinguish from the mixed Mousterian and Zarzian elements (Mortensen 1993: 165). ‘The assemblages contained retouched flakes and blades, notches, borers, and burins. The cores were mainly blade and bladelet cores. While flakes were dominant, blades and bladelets were common as well In 1972, Piperno revisited the sites that Field had recorded around Lake Maharlu near Shiraz (Piperno 1974), Eshkaft-e Ghad-e Barm-e Shur was the largest cave site in this group, but apart from a description of the lithics found there, Piperno gave no further information on the other sites. At Eshkaft-e Ghad-e Barm-e Shur Piperno collectedTHE PALEOLITHIC OF IRAN 41 287 lithic artifacts. The general characteristic of the assemblage is the small size of the tools, which were probably struck from small flint pebbles. Retouched blades and blade- lets, burins, end scrapers and notches, and denticulates predominate. Piperno related the industry to the middle or final phases of the Baradostian although, given the pres- ence of several bladelets, backed bladelets, and inversely retouched bladelets, he did not reject of the possibility ofa Zarzian attribution and suggested a chronological span from the Baradostian into the Zarzian period. He interpreted the assemblage as evidence of the geographical expansion of the Baradostian industry into the southern Zagros Mountains. A mission from Kyoto University to the Arsanjan area has documented several Paleolithic sites in the southern Zagros Mountains as well (Ikeda 1979; ‘Tsuneki and Nishida 2007). Although illustrations of some of the lithics have been published, no descriptions are yet available. ‘The main source of data on the later Paleolithic in the Fars comes from the Kur River Basin (KRB) thanks to the surveys of W. M. Sumner (Sumner 1972) and M. Rosenberg. Rosenberg documented thirty-one rock-shelter sites with Middle to Epipaleolithic artifacts (Rosenberg 1988, 2003). In order to establish the chronos- tratigraphy of the Paleolithic sites in the KRB, he excavated one of the most promising cave sites, Eshkaft-e Gavi (Fig. 3.7), which is dated to the Upper Paleolithic (Rosenberg 1979). He classified the material as Baradostian, while in another promising cave site called KMC, he found Zarzian material, though in both cases the assemblages lacked some of the characteristic elements of both the Baradostian and the Zarzian as defined in the west-central Zagros. Most of the laminar assemblage in the upper the strata of Eshkaft-e Gavi showed Upper Paleolithic affinities and included backed blades, notched blades, burins, end scrapers, carinated scraper, and some fragmentary Baradostian points. Unfortunately Rosenberg’s investigations were cut short in 1979 by the Islamic Revolution. In recent years, many Paleolithic sites and finds have been recorded in Fars. A. Dashtizadeh conducted an intensive survey in the Kazerun area and to the southwest of Shiraz and resurveyed the Marv Dasht as well. In 2003, he revisited the KRB, identifying twenty-one sites dating mainly to the Epipaleolithic, with a few Upper Paleolithic as well (Dashtizadeh forthcoming). He also observed some diagnostic Middle Paleolithic arti- facts. His work largely confirmed what Rosenberg had demonstrated. On the intermontane plain of Kazerun, Dashtizadeh documented twenty-seven sites, the most promising of which are caves. ‘Ihe analysis of the lithics is still at a preliminary stage but the assemblage is mainly characterized by blade and bladelet-based debitage and cores, The tools included thumbnail scrapers, borers, end scrapers, carinated scrap- ers and burins, Dashtizadeh compared them to the Late Baradostian and Zarzian tradi- tions of the western Zagros (Dashtizadeh 2006). One of the most intensive Paleolithic missions in recent years in the southern Zagros has been conducted by the Tubingen Iranian Stone Age Research Project (TISARP) in the Dasht-e Rostam-Basht region, where numerous Paleolithic sites with lithic arti- facts have been recorded (Conard et al. 2006, 2007; Heydari-Guran 2010). This teamFIGURE 3,7 Lithic artifacts from Eshkaft-e Gavi; Southern Zagros Mountains (modified after Rosenberg 1985). has documented numerous Upper Paleolithic sites, including Ghar-e Boof (Ghasidian 2010; Conard and Ghasidian 2011; Ghasidian et al, 2009). The radiocarbon dates from Ghar-e Boof Cave (Fig. 3.8) make it one of the oldest Upper Paleolithic sites of Iran, dat- ing back to c.40,000 cal. BP (Ghasidian 2010; Conard and Ghasidian 2011). The flints used were mainly cobbles of red raw material from the Fahliyan River (Conard et al.‘THE PALEOLITHIC OF IRAN 43 FIGURE 3.8 Rostamian lithic artifacts from Ghar-e Boof Cave (modified after Ghasidian 2010). 2007; Heydari-Guran 2010; Ghasidian 2010). The lithic assemblages of Ghar-e Boof are characterized by bladelets and many unidirectional, single-platform bladelet cores. The tools are dominated by different kinds of retouched bladelets with twisted profile. We refer to these larger retouched bladelets of diverse types as “Rostamian bladelets” (Ghasidian 2010). Rostamian bladelets are the most abundant tool type at Ghar-e Boof. ‘These tools, although somewhat variable, are characterized by their distinctive blank morphology and abrupt and semiabrupt retouch. Their presence in large numbers helps44 BACKGROUND AND BEGINNINGS Nd 36 Moved erga FIGURE. 3.9 Zarzian artifacts from Warwasi Rockshelter (modified after Olszewski 1993).THE PALEOLITHIC OF IRAN 45 to define the lithic assemblage at Ghar-e Boof Cave, which we classify as belonging to the Rostamian. This site also produced forty-one examples of personal ornaments made from five species of shells originating from the early Upper Paleolithic deposits (Conard and Ghasidian 2011). Recently scholars including Olszewski and Dibble (2006) and Otte and Kozlowski (2007) have equated the Baradostian with the Aurignacian. Olszewski’s work on the rich lithic assemblages from Howe's excavations at Warwasi near Kermanshah has funda- mentally questioned the earlier taxonomic system by arguing for strong links between the assemblages from Warwasi and the European Aurignacian. Otte in particular has not only argued that Upper Paleolithic assemblages from Yafteh should be classified as Aurignacian, and that the Aurignacian originated in Iran (Otte and Kozlowski 2007; Otte et al. 2007: 94). We, however, remain skeptical of such claims for intercontinental cultural contact and instead advocate that researchers first establish reliable local cul- tural chronological sequences before engaging in broad comparative studies with such radical implications. In our view, the fieldwork in recent years has demonstrated that the Iranian Upper Paleolithic cannot be limited to the Baradostian, Zagros Aurignacian, and Zarzian (Fig. 3.9). Instead this period documents a variety of local assemblage types such as those from the Dasht-e Rostam and Ghaleh Gusheh that indicate much more spatial and temporal diversity within the Upper Paleolithic than researchers previously thought, FURTHER READING So much recent research has occurred in the Paleolithic archaeology of Iran that older syntheses like Smith (1986) are now very outdated. The edited volume IP from 2009 provides more recent data but readers should note the many journal articles cited below for the most recent advances in Paleolithic studies in Iran. REFERENCES Baumler, M., and J. D. Speth. 1993. A Middle Paleolithic assemblage from Kunji Cave, Iran. In ‘the Paleolithic prehistory of the Zagros-Taurus, ed. D. I. Olszewski and H. L. Dibble, 1-74. Philadelphia: The University Museum. Berillon, J, A. Asgari Khanghah, P. Antoine, JJ. Bahain, B.Chevrier, V. Zeitoun, N. Aminzadeh etal. 2007, Discovery of new open-air Paleolithiclocalities in Central Alborz, Northern Iran, Journal of Human Evolution 52/4: 380-87. Biglari, F. 2001. Report on newly discovered Paleolithic sites at Bisitun, central-western Iran. IJAH 28: 50-60 (in Persian). 2004. The preliminary report on the Paleolithic sitesin Kashan Region. In The silversmiths of Sialk, ed. 8. M. Shahmirzadi, 151-68. Tehran: SRPR 2. Biglari, F, and S. Shidrang, 2006. Ihe Lower Paleolithic occupation of Iran. NEA 69/3~ 60-8.46 BACKGROUND AND BEGINNINGS Biglari, F, M. Javeri, M. Mashkour, Y. Yazdi, S. Shidrang, M. Tengberg, K. Taheri et al. 2009. ‘Test excavations at the Middle Paleolithic sites of Qaleh Bozi, southwest of central Iran: A preliminary report. IP: 29-38. Bordes, J. G., and S. Shidrang. 2009. La Séquence baradostienne de Yafteh (Khorramabad, Lorestan, Iran). IP: 85-100. Braidwood, R. J., B. Howe, and C. A. Reed. 1961. The Iranian Prehistoric Project. Science 133: 2008-10, Conard, N. J., E. Ghasidian, S. Heydari, and M. Zeidi. 2006. Report on the 2005 survey of the Tibingen-Iranian Stone Age Research Project in the Provinces of Esfahan, Fars and Kohgiluyeh-Boyerahmad. In Archaeological Reports, vol. 5, ed, M. Azarnoush, 9-34. Tehran: ICAR. Conard, N. J, E. Ghasidian, S. Heydari, R. Naderi, and M. Zaidee. 2007. The 2006 Season of the ‘Tabingen-Iranian Stone Age Research Project in the provinces of Fars and Markazi. In 9th Annual report of Archaeological Organisation, ed. H. Fazeli, 43~67. Tehran: ICAR. Conard, N. J., E. Ghasidian, and S, Heydari-Guran. 2009, The open-air Late Paleolithic site of Bardia and the Paleolithic occupation of the Qaleh Gusheh Sand Dunes, Esfaghan Province, Iran, IP: 141-54. Conard, N. J. and E. Ghasidian. 2011. The Rostamian Cultural Group and the taxonomy of the Iranian Upper Paleolithic. In Between sand and sea: The archaeology and human ecology of southwestern Asia, Festschrift in honor of Hans-Peter Uerpmann, ed, N. J. Conard, P. 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