Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T13:25:48.016Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do-Ashkaft: a recently discovered Mousterian cave site in the Kermanshah Plain, Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Fereidoun Biglari  and
Saman Heydari
Fereidoun Biglari
Affiliation:
Center for Paleoanthropological and Palaeolithic Research, Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization, Azadi Avenue, Tehran, Iran
Saman Heydari
Affiliation:
Center for Paleoanthropological and Palaeolithic Research, Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization, Azadi Avenue, Tehran, Iran
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Since Dorothy Garrod’s pioneering work at the Mousterian site of Hazar Merd on the western slopes of the Zagros Mountains in 1928, a number of Middle Palaeolithic sites in the area have been discovered, sampled and, in some cases, partially excavated. Some of these sites are located in the Kermanshah Plain, Central Western Zagros Mountains. These sites include the Hunter’s Cave and Gha-e Khar in Bisotun (Coon 1951: Young & Smith 1966), Kobeh and Warwasi in Tang-e Kenesht (Braidwood 1960), and two sites near Harsin (Smith 1986). All but the last two are among a large number of Palaeolithic localities on the south face of a series of calcareous mountain ranges (Kuh-e Parau/ Bisotun massif) on the northeastern rim of Qara Su basin in the Kermanshah Plain (FIGURE 1).

Following a hiatus in archaeological research after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, an independent series of surveys in the area by the authors led to the discovery of three Mousterian sites at Bisotun in 1986 (Biglari in press). During recent years, we located two more Mousterian sites, including Do-Ashkaft, the subject of this note.

Type
News & Notes
Information
Antiquity , Volume 75 , Issue 289 , September 2001 , pp. 487 - 488
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Blglari, F. In press. Recent finds of the Palaeolithic period from Bisotnn, Central Western Zagros Mountains, Iranian Journal of Archaeology and History 28. (In Persian with an English abstract.)Google Scholar
Braidwood, R. 1960 Seeking the world’s first farmers in Persian Kurdistan, Illustrated London News 237: 695–7.Google Scholar
Coon, CS. 1951. Cave explorations in Iran. Philadelphia (PA): University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Heydari, S. 2000. Late Quaternary climatic changes of the Kermanshah Region on the basis of sedimentological evidence from the geological sections of Sorkheh Lizeh and Tang-e Kenesht. Unpublished MA thesis, Department of Geography, The Azad University of Najafabad, Isfahan. (In Persian.)Google Scholar
Llndly, J.M. 1997. The Zagros Mousterian: a regional perspective. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, Tempe (AZ).Google Scholar
Smith, P.E.L. 1986. Palaeolithic archaeology in Iran. Philadelphia (PA): University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Young, T.C. & Smith, P.E.L. 1966. Research in the Central Western Iran, Science 153: 386–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed