The Zagros Mountains are a long mountain range in Iran, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey. This mountain range has a total length of 1,600 km (990 mi). The Zagros mountain range begins in northwestern Iran and roughly follows Iran's western border while covering much of southeastern Turkey and northeastern Iraq. From this border region, the range continues to the southeast under also the waters of the Persian Gulf. It spans the southern parts of the Armenian highland, the whole length of the western and southwestern Iranian plateau, ending at the Strait of Hormuz. The highest point is Mount Dena, at 4,409 metres (14,465 ft).
Ravansar is a city and capital of Ravansar County, Kermanshah Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 16,383, in 3,838 families.
The Levallois technique is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping developed around 250,000 to 300,000 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.
Kermanshah, also known as Kermashan, is the capital of Kermanshah Province, located 525 kilometres from Tehran in the western part of Iran. According to the 2016 census, its population is 946,681. A majority of the people of Kermanshah are bilingual in Southern Kurdish and Persian, and the city is the largest Kurdish-speaking city in Iran. Kermanshah has a moderate and mountainous climate. Most of the inhabitants of Kermanshah are Shia Muslims, but there are also Sunni Muslims, Christians, and followers of Yarsanism.
Gregory Louis Possehl was a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and curator of the Asian Collections at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He was involved in excavations of the Indus Valley civilization in India and Pakistan since 1964, and was an author of many books and articles on the Indus Civilization and related topics. He received his BA in anthropology from the University of Washington in 1964, his MA in anthropology from the University of Washington in 1967, and his PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1974. He conducted major excavations in Gujarat, Rajasthan (Gilund), and in January 2007, began an excavation at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Bat in the Sultanate of Oman.
The Little Zab or Lower Zab is a river that originates in Iran and joins the Tigris just south of Al Zab in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. It is approximately 400 kilometres (250 mi) long and drains an area of about 22,000 square kilometres (8,500 sq mi). The river is fed by rainfall and snowmelt, resulting in a peak discharge in spring and low water in summer and early fall. Two dams have been built on the Little Zab, regulating the river flow, providing water for irrigation and generating hydroelectricity. The Zagros Mountains have been occupied since at least the Lower Palaeolithic, but the earliest archaeological site in the Little Zab basin, Barda Balka, dates to the Middle Palaeolithic. Human occupation of the Little Zab basin has been attested for every period since then.
The Palaeolithic Era in Iran is the prehistory of Iran in the period from c. 800,000 BCE to c. 11,000 BCE and can be divided into the Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic periods.
The Baradostian culture was an Upper Paleolithic flint industry culture found in the Zagros region in the border-country between Iraq and Iran. It was preceded by the Middle Paleolithic Mousterian culture, directly overlying it without an intervening bladelet industry. This culture is known for the high percentage of burins and some of these were similar to the distinctive nosed profile of the Aurignacian burins. Baradost is one of the mountains in the Zagros Mountains in Iraq.
Harold Lewis Dibble was an American Paleolithic archaeologist. His main research concerned the lithic reduction, during which he conducted fieldwork in France, Egypt, and Morocco. He was a professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Curator-in-Charge of the European Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
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.
Kamyar Abdi is an Iranian archaeologist. He is the editor of the Iranian Journal of Archaeology and History, a Research Associate at the Iranian Center for Research on Humanities and Cultural Studies, and professor at Department of Archaeology at Shiraz University. He was the deputy director of the National Museum of Iran in 2011.
Cultural Landscape of Hawraman or Cultural Landscape of Uramanat is the 26th tangible cultural heritage of Iran. This remote and mountainous landscape bears testimony to the traditional culture of the Hawrami people, an agropastoral Kurdish tribe that has inhabited the region since about 3000 BCE. The property, at the heart of the Zagros Mountains in the provinces of Kurdistan and Kermanshah along the western border of Iran.
Bisitun Cave is an archaeological site of prehistoric human habitation in the Zagros Mountains in the Kermanshah province, north-west Iran. Bisitun Cave is one of five caves situated at the base of The Rock of Bisitun, a 1,300 m (4,300 ft) high cliff within the Chamchamal Plain. It was first excavated in 1949 by Carlton Coon, and is notable for the discovery of Mousterian stone tools of the Middle Paleolithic, as well as the remains of 109 identifiable species of Pleistocene mammals, and hominid remains. Harold Dibble described the stone tools as having strong Levallois components. All artefacts are apparently from the same period.
Jacques Jaubert is a French prehistorian and professor of Paleolithic archaeology at University of Bordeaux 1.
The prehistory of the Iranian plateau, and the wider region now known as Greater Iran, as part of the prehistory of the Near East is conventionally divided into the Paleolithic, Epipaleolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age periods, spanning the time from the first settlement by archaic humans about a million years ago until the beginning of the historical record during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, in the 8th century BC.
Maiwala or Farokhshad is a mountain of the Zagros Mountains, located in western Iran, north of the city of Kermanshah. It is one of the mountains of Paraw range, with an altitude of 2445 above sea level. It is about 5 km long from the Tang-e Malavard at west to Taq-e Kenesht at east. The mountain is contained several caves of which some are archaeological.
Frank Hole is an American Near Eastern archaeologist known for his work on the prehistory of Iran, the origins of food production, and the archaeology of pastoral nomadism. He is C. J. MacCurdy Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Yale University.
Darian Dam was constructed on the Sirwan River between 2009 and 2015. The Dam is located in the Hawrāmān region of Kurdistan and Kermanshah. The Darian Dam Archeological Salvage Program (DDASP) was planned by Iranian Center for Archaeological Research before flooding the reservoir.
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.
