Abstract:
Although the Iranian plateau has witnessed Paleolithic researches since the early twenty century, still little is known about the Paleolithic of Iran. There are several reasons for this situation and lack of scholarly enthusiasm on the part of Iranian archaeologists seems to be the most imperative one. Concerning the history of Paleolithic surveys and excavations conducted in Iran, three distinct phases are recognizable. First, from the beginning of the twenty century to the 1980 when numerous field missions were executed in this region all by western institutes, second phase observes a twenty years gap in the Paleolithic studies hence; only few surveys could be performed in this period, and the third phase starts with the reopening of the Iranian fields to the non-Iranian researchers, which led to the survey and excavation of handful of new Paleolithic sites. This article reviews Paleolithic researches conducted in Iran since the beginning of twenty century to the present time.
Machine summary:
In 1963, Charles McBurney excavated at the Middle Paleolithic layers of Kiaram I cave in the northeastern of Albroz Mountains in Golestan province and reported the existence of some Mousterian flint knapping traditions with no signs of Levallois technique (McBurney 1964); however, soon he shifted his research area to the central Zagros and continued the earlier field missions in this region.
During the years of 1964-5 Philip Smith and Cuyler Young surveyed some areas in Luristan and Azerbaijan in central and northern Zagros and reported some Paleolithic sites, which among them the cave of Markharley (also named as Ghar-e Khar) was nominated for small size excavation.
Between 1999 and 2001, as a part of the archaeological surveys in Islamabad plain in western Iran (Abdi, 1999), some Paleolithic sites were reported, which among them Wazmeh cave and the open site of Amarmerdeg (Lower Paleolithic) were the significant ones that the former was gone under small size excavation providing a Humian Maxillary premolar dated to the Upper Paleolithic (Trinkaus et al.
That same year the Tübingen-Iranian Stone Age Research Project (TISARP) initiated its field works in some regions in central and southwestern of Iran such as northeastern of Karkas Mountain and as a result of that numerous Paleolithic localities were reported including the large open site of Barida, which was assigned to the Epi and Upper Paleolithic based on the technotypological analysis of the recovered artifacts (Conard et al.