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

BIGLARI, FEREIDOUN ; HEYDARI, SAMAN

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 Ghar-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).

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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.

Do-Ashkaft is a large cave on the northern outskirts of the modern city of Kermanshah, about 1600 m a.s.l. on the southern face of the Maiwaleh Mountain. The large, bare mouth of the cave and another smaller cave next to it are situated about 300 m above the plain floor and thus visible from a far distance (FIGURE 2).

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During our first visit to the site in 1996, the rich surface finds and other advantageous features encouraged us to undertake a fairly comprehensive study of the site, which is still going on, including a series of surface collections of lithic artefacts at one-month intervals, a geomorphological study of the site and its environs, and locating the local sources of raw lithic material.

The main chamber of the cave is 23 m deep and 15 m wide. The floor is covered with debris from modern use as a winter campsite by sheep and goat herders. Next to the mouth of the main cave there is a small spring with regular flow even in warm, dry summers, which seems to have played a major role in the geomorphological and archaeological history of the site. Exposed breccia at the entrance and some patches on the walls indicate lateral percolation of water into the cave sediments. In some places this breccia is about 2 m above the present floor. The presence and position of the breccia suggest that a substantial amount of the cave sediments may have been washed away. The breccia at the entrance is rich in fragmentary animal bones, charcoal and flint artefacts. Some Middle Palaeolithic artefacts, including a few side-scrapers and a Mousterian point, were recovered from this breccia. Animal bones are extremely fragmentary and some are burned, suggesting human involvement in their accumulation during the Mousterian occupation. They include a fragment of right mandibule of an adult specimen and an upper third right molar of a sub-adult ruminant, both allocated to wild Caprine (sheep or goat).

During the last four years more than 4000 pieces of flint were collected from the entrance area and the talus slope. Since there is no sign of later industries, except a few bladelets and an end-scraper, the surface collection seems to be unmixed and to represent a typical Zagros Mousterian industry. Primary observations indicate that lithic artefacts were predominantly made from raw material procured in the immediate vicinity of the site, a fine glossy opaque red and green material which seems to be jasper. Survey located outcrops of this material and its two other variants along the southern slope of Maiwaleh Mountain.

The lithic assemblage at Do-Ashkaft comprises tools, flakes, trimming flakes, shatters and cores. An emphasis on heavily retouched pieces characterizes the assemblage. Such heavy reduction and utilization is typical of the Zagros Mousterian assemblages (Lindly 1997). Single and convergent scraper (including Mousterian points) constitute the largest percentage of the tools, followed by other scraper types, retouched pieces, notches/denticulates, burins and miscellanous artefacts (FIGURE 3).

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In order to gather information about the distribution of other possible Palaeolithic sites in the vicinity, we planned a survey of the entire southern slope of the Maiwaleh Mountain. An area of about 7x1 km was surveyed in 1999 and a total of 14 caves and rock-shelters with Upper Palaeolithic and later lithic assemblages were recorded. The only probable Middle Palaeolithic artefacts found include a convergent scraper from an abandoned limestone quarry and a few artefacts including a Mousterian point in a geological section. This section and another one near Tang-e Kenesht were recorded and sampled by S. Heydari. His study provides a paleo-environmental sequence for the region with a late Middle Pleistocene to Holocene age (Heydari 2000).

Acknowledgements. We wish to thank Naser Chegini, former Director of the Center for Archaeological Research of the ICHO for granting us a permit to carry out the survey of the southern slope of the Maiwaleh Mountain. We are also grateful to Kamyar Abdi for his comments, suggestions, and encouragement. Many thanks are also due to John Lindly, Ian Brooks, and especially John Speth, as well as Kamal Taheri, Fereydoun Jamshidi, Abbas Motarjem, and Mr Rashadi for their generous support and valuable helps during and after our fieldwork. The identification of bone fragments is courtesy of Marian Mashkour of CNRS.

References

BIGLARI, F. In press. Recent finds of the Palaeolithic period from Bisotun, Central Western Zagros Mountains, Iranian Journal of Archaeology and History 28. (In Persian with an English abstract.)

BRAIDWOOD, R. 1960 Seeking the world's first farmers in Persian Kurdistan, Illustrated London News 237: 695-7.

COON, C.S. 1951. Cave explorations in Iran. Philadelphia (PA): University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.

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.)

LINDLY, J.M. 1997. The Zagros Mousterian: a regional perspective. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, Tempe (AZ).

SMITH, P.E.L. 1986. Palaeolithic archaeology in Iran. Philadelphia (PA): University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.

YOUNG, T.C. & P.E.L. SMITH. 1966. Research in the Central Western Iran, Science 153: 386-91.

FEREIDOUN BIGLARI & SAMAN HEYDARI(*)

(*) Center for Paleoanthropological and Palaeolithic Research, Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization, Azadi Avenue, Tehran, Iran.