Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:03:22.556Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Aurignacian in the Zagros region: new research at Yafteh Cave, Lorestan, Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

M. Otte ,
F. Biglari ,
D. Flas ,
S. Shidrang ,
N. Zwyns ,
M. Mashkour ,
R. Naderi ,
A. Mohaseb ,
N. Hashemi  and
J. Darvish
...Show all authors
M. Otte
Affiliation:
1University of Liège, Service of Prehistory, 7, place du XX août, bât. A1, 4000 Liège, Belgium (Email: prehist@ulg.ac.be)
F. Biglari
Affiliation:
2Center for Paleolithic Research, National Museum of Iran, 30 Tir st., Emam Khomaini Ave. P.O.Box 11365/4364, Tehran, Iran (Email: f.biglari@nationalmuseumofiran.ir, s.shidrang@nationalmuseumofiran.ir, zagrosnaderi@yahoo.com)
D. Flas
Affiliation:
1University of Liège, Service of Prehistory, 7, place du XX août, bât. A1, 4000 Liège, Belgium (Email: prehist@ulg.ac.be)
S. Shidrang
Affiliation:
2Center for Paleolithic Research, National Museum of Iran, 30 Tir st., Emam Khomaini Ave. P.O.Box 11365/4364, Tehran, Iran (Email: f.biglari@nationalmuseumofiran.ir, s.shidrang@nationalmuseumofiran.ir, zagrosnaderi@yahoo.com)
N. Zwyns
Affiliation:
1University of Liège, Service of Prehistory, 7, place du XX août, bât. A1, 4000 Liège, Belgium (Email: prehist@ulg.ac.be)
M. Mashkour
Affiliation:
3UMR 5197, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle/CNRS, “Archéozoologie, Histoire des Sociétés Humaines et des Peuplements Animaux”, 55, rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France (Email: mashkour@mnhn.fr)
R. Naderi
Affiliation:
2Center for Paleolithic Research, National Museum of Iran, 30 Tir st., Emam Khomaini Ave. P.O.Box 11365/4364, Tehran, Iran (Email: f.biglari@nationalmuseumofiran.ir, s.shidrang@nationalmuseumofiran.ir, zagrosnaderi@yahoo.com)
A. Mohaseb
Affiliation:
3UMR 5197, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle/CNRS, “Archéozoologie, Histoire des Sociétés Humaines et des Peuplements Animaux”, 55, rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France (Email: mashkour@mnhn.fr)
N. Hashemi
Affiliation:
4Rodents Research Group, Mashhad Ferdowsi University, Iran
J. Darvish
Affiliation:
4Rodents Research Group, Mashhad Ferdowsi University, Iran
V. Radu
Affiliation:
5National Romanian History Museum, 12 Calea Victoriei, Bucharest, Romania (Email: direct@mnir.ro)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Yafteh cave in Iran has an intact Aurignacian sequence over 2m deep. First explored by Frank Hole and Kent Flannery in the 1960s, its strata and assemblage are here re-evaluated at first hand by a new international team. The authors show that the assemblage is genuine Aurignacian and dates back to about 35.5K uncal BP. They propose it as emerging locally and even as providing a culture of origin for modern humans in West Asia and Europe.

Keywords

PalaeolithicAurignacianEuropeIranZagrosmodern humans
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 311 , 1 March 2007 , pp. 82 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

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

Adeli, J., Garajian, A. & Yazdi, L. Paply. 2001. Recent pictographs of Houmian. Journal of Anthropology, 1st year, n°2: 84–101 (in Farsi).Google Scholar
Coon, C. S. 1951. Cave Explorations in Iran 1949. Philadelphia: The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Coon, C. S. 1957. The Seven Caves. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Coon, C. S. & Ralph, E. K.. 1955. Radiocarbon dates from Kara Kamar, Afghanistan. Science 122: 921–22.Google Scholar
Davis, R. 2004. Kara Kamar in Northern Afghanistan: Aurignacian, Aurignacoid or Just Plain Upper Paleolithic?, in Derevianko, A. P. & Nokhrina, T. I. (ed.) Arkheologiya I Paleoekologiya Evrazii: 211–17. Novosibirsk: Rossijskaya Akademiya Nauk, Sibirskoe Otdenie, Institut Arkheologii i Etnografii.Google Scholar
Garrod, D. 1930. The Palaeolithic of Southern Kurdistan: Excavations in the Caves of Zarzi and Hazar Merd. Bulletin of the American School of Prehistoric Research 6: 8–43.Google Scholar
Garrod, D. 1937. The Near East as a Gateway of Prehistoric Migration, in Mac, G. G. Curdy (ed.) Early Man: 33–40. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott.Google Scholar
Garrod, D. 1957. Notes sur le Paléolithique supérieur du Moyen Orient. Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française 54: 739–445.Google Scholar
Hesse, B. 1989. Paleolithic Faunal Remains from Ghar-i-Khar, Western Iran. Birmingham (AL): University of Alabama.Google Scholar
Hole, F. & Flannery, K.. 1967. The Prehistory of Southwestern Iran: A Preliminary Report. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society XXXIII: 147–206.Google Scholar
Nioradze, M. G. & Otte, M.. 2000. Paléolithique supérieur de Géorgie. L’ Anthropologie (Paris) 104(2): 265–300.Google Scholar
Olszewski, D. I. 2001 Ruminations on the Early Upper Paleolithic and a Consideration of the Zagros Aurignacian, in Hays, M. A. & Thacker, P. T. (ed.) Questioning the Answers: Re-solving Fundamental Problems of the Early Upper Paleolithic: 79–89. Oxford: BAR International Series 1005.Google Scholar
Olszewski, D. I. & Dibble, H.. 1994. The Zagros Aurignacian. Current Anthropology 35: 68–75.Google Scholar
Otte, M. 1995. Diffusion des langues modernes en Eurasie préhistorique. Comptes rendus de l'Académie des sciences Paris, vol. 321, series IIa: 1219–26.Google Scholar
Otte, M. 2004. The Aurignacian in Asia, in Brantingham, P. J., Kuhn, S. & Kerry, K. (ed.) The Early Upper Paleolithic Beyond Western Europe: 144–150. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Otte, M. In press. Arguments for the population movement of anatomically modern humans from Central Asia to Europe. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Otte, M., Adeli, J. & Remacle, L. L. 2003. Art rupestre de l'ouest iranien. INORA 37: 8–12.Google Scholar
Otte, M. & Biglari, F.. 2004. Témoins aurignaciens dans le Zagros, Iran. Anthropologie 42(3): 243–47.Google Scholar
Otte, M., Biglari, F., Alipour, S., Naderi, R. & Hosseini, J.. 2004. Earliest Human Occupations in Central Asia: An Iranian Look, in Derevianko, A. P. & Nokhrina, T. I. (ed.) Arkheologiya I Paleoekologiya Evrazii: 279–82. Novosibirsk: Rossijskaya Akademiya Nauk, Sibirskoe Otdenie, Institut Arkheologii i Etnografii.Google Scholar
Otte, M. & Derevianko, A. P.. 2001. The Aurignacian in Altai. Antiquity 75: 44–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otte, M. & Kozlowski, J.. 2004. La place du Baradostien dans l'origine du Paléolithique supérieur d'Eurasie. L’ Anthopologie 107(3-4): 395–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otte, M. & Kozlowski, J.. In press. L’ Aurignacien du Zagros. Liège: ERAUL.Google Scholar
Remacle, L., Lejeune, M., Adeli, J., Mohammadi, S. & Otte, M.. In press. Art rupestre de Houmian, province du Luristan, Iran, in Hameau, P. (ed.) Proceedings of the International Symposium “Animaux peints et gravés. De la forme au signe”, Nice, Carcès, Tourves, Le Val, 16-18 July 2005. Paris: Anthropozoologica.Google Scholar
Richards, M., Pettitt, P., Stiner, M. & Trinkaus, E.. 2001. Stable isotope evidence for increasing dietary breadth in the European mid-Upper Paleolithic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98(11): 6528–32.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, M. 1988. Paleolithic settlement patterns in the Marv Dasht, Fars Province, Iran. Ann Arbor: Unversity Microfilms.Google Scholar
Shidrang, S. 2005. Survey of the rockshelter site of Warkaini near Kermanshah, Archaeology, No.1: 78–81. Tehran, (In Farsi, with an English abstract).Google Scholar
Shidrang, S. & Biglari, F.. 2005. Sefid-Ab: New Evidence of Upper Paleolithic Occupation at the Iranian Central Plateau. ASOR Annual Meeting Abstract Book: 23–24. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Sinitsyn, A. A. 1993. Les niveaux aurignaciens de Kostenki I, in Acts of the 12th UISPP Congress, Bratislava (1991): 242–59.Google Scholar
Sinitsyn, A. A. 2003. A Palaeolithic ‘Pompeii’ at Kostenki, Russia. Antiquity 77: 9–14.Google Scholar
Sinitsyn, A. A. 2004. Les sépultures de Kostenki: chronologie, attribution culturelle, rite funéraire, in Otte, M. (ed.) La spiritualité, Actes du Colloque international de Liège (10-12 December 2003). Liège, ERAUL 106: 237–44.Google Scholar
Solecki, R. S. 1955. Shanidar Cave, a Palaeolithic Site in Northern Iraq. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Verpoorte, A. 2005. The first modern humans in Europe? A closer look at the dating evidence from the Swabian Jura (Germany). Antiquity 79: 269–79.Google Scholar
Wild, E.M, Teschler-Nikola, M., Kutschera, W., Steier, W., Trinkaus, E. & Wanek, W.. 2005. Direct dating of Early Upper Paleolithic human remains from Mladeč. Nature 435: 332–35.Google Scholar