New researches in Islamic humanities studies

New researches in Islamic humanities studies

Newly discovered evidence from the Upper Paleolithic period in Pol-e Dokhtar County, Lorestan Province

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Assistant Professor, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Lorestan University, Khorramabad, Iran.
10.22034/api.2022.705948
Abstract
Lorestan Province in western Iran has always been known as one of the ancient regions and human settlements in the Paleolithic era. Based on information obtained from archaeological excavations in the caves of Khorramabad Valley and Kohdasht in the past few decades, the history of settlement in Lorestan Province dates back to about one hundred thousand years ago and the Middle Paleolithic period. In an archaeological survey recently conducted in the Miankauh region of Pol-e Dokhtar County, evidence of hand tools belonging to the Old Paleolithic period was identified from 15 sites. This period, which has been considered to be between 1,800,000 and 250,000 years old, is of great importance in world archaeological studies due to its connection with the history, route and manner of dispersal of early hominids. A total of 153 hand tools were found from these sites, which were close to each other; A cleaver, a cleaver-mother stone, a mother stone, an axe handle, a cleaver, a triangular pick, a perforator, a scraper, and a chipper were found, which, based on comparative typology, belong to the Upper Paleolithic period. The importance of these findings in archaeological research on the Iranian plateau is very high, because to date, this number of significant hand tools has not been reported from the introduced Upper Paleolithic sites of Iran, which indicates that Lorestan province could be one of the important areas and habitats of early humans on the path of dispersal out of Africa.
Keywords

  1. امان­الهی بهاروند، سکندر. (1370). جغرافیای لرستان، پیشکوه و پشتکوه. خرم­آباد: انتشارات فرهنگ و ارشاد اسلامی لرستان.
  2. بهرامی، محمد. (1399). گزارش بررسی و شناسایی دهستان­های میان­کوه شرقی و غربی شهرستان پلدختر، استان لرستان. آرشیو اداره کل میراث فرهنگی، گردشگری و صنایع دستی لرستان، (منتشر نشده).
  3. روستایی، کورش، بیگلری، فریدون، حیدری، سامان و وحدتی­نسب، حامد. (1380). گزارش مقدماتی بررسی باستلن­شناختی محوطه­های پارینه­سنگی استان لرستان: زمستان 1379. مجله­ی باستان­شناسی و تاریخ. سال شانزدهم. شماره اول. پیاپی 31. ص 64-46.
  4. مرادی، بابک. (1386). بررسی و مطالعه غارها و پناه­گاه­های صخره­ای شهرستان پلدختر، استان لرستان. آرشیو اداره کل میراث فرهنگی، گردشگری و صنایع دستی لرستان، (منتشر نشده).
  5. وحدتی، علی اکیر. (1384). گزارش فصل اول بررسی و شناسایی شهرستان پلدختر، استان لرستان. آرشیو اداره کل میراث فرهنگی، گردشگری و صنایع دستی لرستان، (منتشر نشده).
  6. عطایی، محمدتقی. (1385). گزارش فصل دوم بررسی و شناسایی شهرستان پلدختر، استان لرستان. آرشیو اداره کل میراث فرهنگی، گردشگری و صنایع دستی لرستان، (منتشر نشده).
  7. Alibaigi, S., et al. (2011). Paleolithic open-air sites revealed in the Kuran Buzan Valley, Central Zagros, Iran. Antiquity. Volume 85, issue 329, progect gallery.
  8. ARIAI, A. & C. THIBAULT. (1975). Nouvelles precisions à propose the lʹoutillage paleolithique ancient sur galet. Khorassan (Iran). Paleorient 3: 101-108.
  9. BAR YOSEF, O. & N. GOREN-INBAR. (1993). The Lithic Assemblages of Ubeydiya: A Lower Paleolithic site in the Jordan Valley. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
  10. BAR-YOSEF, O., (1994). The Lower Paleolithic of the Near East. Journal of World Prehistory 8: 211-265
  11. BAR-YOSEF, O. (1998). Early colonizations and cultural continuities in the Lower Paleolithic of western Asia, in M. D. Petragalia & Korisettar (eds.) Early human behavior in global context: The Rise and Diversity of the Lower Paleolithic Recor 221-279. Londen and New York: Routledge.
  12. BIGLARI, F., et al. (2000). A Recent Find of Possible Lower Paleolithic Assemblage from the Foothills of the Zagros Mountains. Antiquity 78, No 302, Project Gallery.
  13. BIGLARI, F., S. HEYDARI, S. SHIDRANG., (2004). Ganj Par: The first evidence for Lower Paleolithic occupation in the Southern Caspian Basin, Iran. Antiquity 78 302.
  14. BIGLARI, F., S. SHIDRANG. (2006). The lower Paleolithic occupation of Iran. Near Eastern Archaeology 69: 3–4, 160–68.
  15. BRAIDWOOD, R. (1960). Seeking the world’s first farmers in Persian Kurdistan: a full-scale investigation of prehistoric sites near Kermanshah. The Illustrated London News 237: 695–97.
  16. COON, C.S., (1951). Cave Explorations in Iran: 1949. University Museum, Pennsylvania.
  17. DAVOUDI, D., BAZGIR, B., ABBASNEJAD, R., BARSKY, D., OLL´e, A., OTTE, M., (2015). The Lower Paleolithic of Iran: Probing New Finds from Mar Gwergalan Cave (Holeylan, Central Zagros). Archaeol., Ethnol. Anthropol. Eurasia 43, 3–15.
  18. Goff, C., (1971). Luristan before the Iron age, Iran 9: 131-152.

 

  1. GOREN-INBAR, N., et al., (2018). The Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Volume IV: The Lithic Assemblages. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series.
  2. Hole, F., (1979). Rediscovering the Past in the Present: Ethnoarchaeology in Luristan, Iran. in: (ed.), C. Kramer. New York: Columbia University Press.
  3. HUME, G. W., (1976). The Ladizian: An Industry of the Asian Chopper-Chopping Tool Complex in Iranian Baluchistan. Philadelphia.
  4. Moradi, B. et al, (2016). A Short Account of Kelek Asad Morad: A Pre-Pottery Neolithic Site in Pol e Dokhtar, Luristan. in: The Neolithic of the Iranian Plateau Recent Research. Edited by: Kourosh Roustaei and marjan Mashkour, Studies in Early Near Eastern Production, Subsistence, and Environment 18. Berlin, ex oriente (2016).
  5. MORTENSEN, P., (1993). Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic Sites in the Hulailan Valley, Northern Luristan. In: Olszewsky, D.I.A.D., H. L. (Ed.), The Paleolithic Prehistory of the Zagros-Taurus. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, pp. 159–187.
  6. SADEK-KOOROS, H., (1976). Early Hominid Traces in East Azarbaijan. In: Bagherzadeh, F. (Ed.), Proceedings of the IVth Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran. Iranian Center for Archaeological Research, Tehran.
  7. SAHNOUNI, M., et al., (2021). 9-million- and 2.4-million-year-old artifacts and stone tool–cutmarked bones from Ain Boucherit, Algeria. Science 10.1126: 1-9.
  8. LEAKEY, M. D., (1971). Olduvai Gorge, Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960-1963. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  9. Vahdati Nasab, H., et al., (2013). Late Pleistocene dispersal corridors across the Iranian Plateau: A case study from Mirak, a Middle Paleolithic site on the northern edge of the Iranian Central desert (Dasht-e Kavir); Quaternary International. 300: 267-281.
  10. ZEYNIVAND, M., (2017). An Acheulean biface from the Deh Luran Plain, Iran. Antiquity 91 357, e2: 1–5.