Gilan province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran, in the northwest of the country. Its capital is the city of Rasht. The province lies along the Caspian Sea, in Iran's Region 3, west of the province of Mazandaran, east of the province of Ardabil, and north of the provinces of Zanjan and Qazvin. It borders Azerbaijan in the north.
The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology. The Middle Paleolithic broadly spanned from 300,000 to 50,000 years ago. There are considerable dating differences between regions. The Middle Paleolithic was succeeded by the Upper Paleolithic subdivision which first began between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. Pettit and White date the Early Middle Paleolithic in Great Britain to about 325,000 to 180,000 years ago, and the Late Middle Paleolithic as about 60,000 to 35,000 years ago. The Middle Paleolithic was in the geological Chibanian and Late Pleistocene ages.
The Levallois technique is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping developed around 250,000 to 400,000 years ago during the Middle Palaeolithic period. It is part of the Mousterian stone tool industry, and was used by the Neanderthals in Europe and by modern humans in other regions such as the Levant.
Ganj Par is a Lower Paleolithic site located in the Gilan province in northern Iran.
Kashafrud Basin(کشفرود) is an archaeological site in Iran, known for the Lower Palaeolithic artifacts collected there; these are the oldest-known evidence for human occupation of Iran. Kashafrud includes a cluster of sites which are located 35 km to 85 km southeast of Mashhad, near the Kashfarud River. The French geologist Claude Thibault, in collaboration with the Iranian geologist Ali Ariai, conducted surveys in the Kashfrud basin east of Mashhad in 1974–75, during which 80 stone artifacts were collected from seven open areas.
The Later Stone Age (LSA) is a period in African prehistory that follows the Middle Stone Age.
The Do-Ashkaft Cave, being a Middle Paleolithic cave site, is located north of Kermanshah, near Taq-e Bostan, Iran about 1,600 m (5,200 ft) above sea level. Its entrance faces south of Meywala Mount, overlooking the national park of Kuhestan. The site was first visited in 1996 by Iranian researchers F. Biglari and S. Heydari-Guran and during the following four years a series of surface surveys were made at one-month intervals, which resulted in a rich collection of Middle Paleolithic lithic artifacts.
Darband Cave is a Lower Paleolithic site in the Gilan Province in northern Iran, located on the north side of a deep tributary canyon of the Siahrud River, a tributary of the Sefīd-Rūd River that flows into the Caspian Sea.
Yafteh is an Upper Paleolithic cave located at the foot of Yafteh Mountain in the Zagros Mountains range, located northwest of Khoramabad in western Zagros, Lorestan Province of western Iran.
Fereidoun Biglari is an Iranian archaeologist and a museum curator.
Wezmeh Cave is an archaeological site near Islamabad Gharb, western Iran, around 470 km (290 mi) southwest of the capital Tehran. The site was discovered in 1999 and excavated in 2001 by a team of Iranian archaeologists under the leadership of Dr. Kamyar Abdi. Wezmeh cave was re-excavated by a team under direction of Fereidoun Biglari in 2019.
Qal'eh Bozi is a complex of caves and rock shelters sites located about 25 km (15.5 mi) south-southwest of Isfahan, Iran; northeast of Dizicheh and north of Hassanabad. The site includes two rock shelters and a cave located at altitudes between 1,750 and 1,810 m above sea level. The caves are found on the southern face of a limestone mountain of lower Cretaceous age that rises to more than 500 m (1,640.4 ft) above the plain floor. From the cave entrance there is a commanding view of the plain below and of the Zaiandeh Rud River flowing about 2 km (1.2 mi) to the south and southeast.
The Alborz range, also spelled as Alburz, Elburz or Elborz, is a mountain range in northern Iran that stretches from the border of Azerbaijan along the western and entire southern coast of the Caspian Sea and finally runs northeast and merges into the smaller Aladagh Mountains and borders in the northeast on the parallel mountain ridge Kopet Dag in the northern parts of Khorasan. All these mountains are part of the much larger Alpide belt. The Alborz range is divided into the Western, Central, and Eastern Alborz Mountains. The Western Alborz Range runs south-southeastward almost along the western coast of the Caspian Sea. The Central Alborz runs from west to east along the entire southern coast of the Caspian Sea, while the Eastern Alborz Range runs in a northeasterly direction, toward the northern parts of the Khorasan region, southeast of the Caspian Sea. Mount Damavand, the highest mountain in Iran measuring 5,610.0 m, is located in the Central Alborz Mountains. Mount Damavand is the 12th most prominent peak in the world and the second most prominent in Asia after Mount Everest.
The Buttermilk Creek complex is the remains of a paleolithic settlement along the shores of Buttermilk Creek in present-day Salado, Texas. The assemblage dates to ~13.2 to 15.5 thousand years old. If confirmed, the site represents evidence of human settlement in the Americas that pre-dates the Clovis culture.
Minori Cave is part of the Callao limestone formation, located in Barangay Quibal, Municipality of Peñablanca, Cagayan Province in Northern Luzon. The said cave has two openings. One, designated as Mouth B, is located at 17° 43' 17" N latitude and 121° 49' 42" E longitude. The other opening, Mouth A is located 17° 43' 21" N latitude and 121° 49' 44" E longitude. The cave has an average elevation of about 200 m (656.2 ft) above sea level, and length and width of 147 m (482.3 ft) and 7 to 11 m, respectively. The cave is divided into four chambers with mouth A as chamber A and mouth B as chamber D. Chambers B and C are in between the two mouths.
Trialetian is the name for an Upper Paleolithic-Epipaleolithic stone tool industry from the South Caucasus. It is tentatively dated to the period between 16,000 / 13,000 BP and 8,000 BP.
Shiwatoo, located 7 km to the west of Mahabad, overlooking Mahabad-Piranshahr road in the West Azarbaijan Province, Iran, is an archaeological site of the Lower Paleolithic, c. 400.000 years ago.
Wezmeh Child or Wezmeh 1 represented by an isolated unerupted human maxillary right premolar tooth of an individual between 6–10 years old. It was found with large numbers of animal fossil remains in a cave site called Wezmeh near Islamabad Gharb, western Iran, around 470 km (290 mi) southwest of the capital Tehran. The site was discovered in 1999. The premolar is relatively large compared with both Holocene and Late Pleistocene P3 and P4. Researchers analyzed it by non-destructive gamma spectrometry that resulted in a date of around 25,000 years BP. But later analysis showed that the gamma spectrometry dates the date was minimum age and the tooth is substantially older. Endostructural features and quantified crown tissue proportions and semilandmark-based geometric morphometric analyses of the enamel-dentine junction aligns it closely with Neanderthals and shows that it is distinct from the fossil and extant modern human pattern. Therefore, it is the first direct evidence of Neanderthal presence in the Iranian Zagros. Given that the cave was a carnivore den during late Pleistocene, it is probable that the Wezmeh Child was killed, or had its remains scavenged, by carnivores who used the cave as den. Within an approximate 30 km radius of the Cave, 13 Middle Paleolithic sites have been recorded; among them, the nearest sites are located about 10 km to the northwest. The tooth is on display at Paleolithic gallery of National Museum of Iran
Chapalak Cave is a Late Paleolithic site located at the Amarlou region, in the Gilan Province, northern Iran. The cave contains evidence for late Paleolithic human cave occupation.
Darai Rockshelter is an archaeological site in the southwest of Kurdistan Province, in west Iran. It is located in the Sirwan River valley, between Naw and Asparez villages, in the Hawraman region. It faces NNW at an altitude of 760m a.s.l.The shelter was discovered during Darian Dam Archaeological Salvage Program in 2015, excavated in 2015–2016, and it was subsequently submerged in 2016.
