Fertile crescent Neolithic B circa 7500 BC

Ali Kosh is a small Tell of the Early

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

period located in Ilam in west

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, in the

Zagros Mountains The Zagros Mountains are a mountain range in Iran, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey. The mountain range has a total length of . The Zagros range begins in northwestern Iran and roughly follows Iran's western border while covering much of s ...

. It was excavated by

Frank Hole Frank Hole (born 1931) 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 a ...

and

Kent Flannery Kent Vaughn Flannery (born 1934) is an American archaeologist who has conducted and published extensive research on the pre-Columbian cultures and civilizations of Mesoamerica, and in particular those of central and southern Mexico. He has also w ...

in the 1960s. In 2017, Ali Kosh was stratigraphically and chronologically revisited by Hojjat Darabi.

Site

The site is about 135 meters in diameter. Research has found three phases of occupation of the site. The exact length of the occupation is debated; earlier authors saw the site as inhabited over an almost 2,000 year period, starting from around 7500 BCE. But recent (2018) analysis indicates only a 1,000-year occupation.Darabi, H. (2018). 'Revisiting Stratigraphy of Ali Kosh, Deh Luran Plain', ''Pazhoheshha-ye Bastan shenasi Iran'', 8(16), pp. 27-42. The site was occupied originally by pre-pottery peoples. Pottery was introduced to Ali Kosh during the third phase of its occupation. Nearby Chogha Sefid has only one pre-pottery phase, after which the occupation extended into the

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

period.Frank Hole (2004)
NEOLITHIC AGE IN IRAN
iranicaonline.org

Occupational phases

Three phases of occupations have been identified.

Bus Mordeh phase

The Bus Mordeh phase started around 7500 BC. The settlement began as a group of small, rectangular houses with several rooms made of rammed earth. The occupants develop an economy based on the herding of sheep, goats, hunting and gathering wild plants.

Ali Kosh phase

This phase is dated around 7250-7000 BC. With larger houses, the deceased are buried under the house floors, sometimes with various burial gifts. The skull deformation using bandages during childhood is introduced, possibly as a sign of the different status of the bearers. The economy shows a more intense agricultural base supported by fishing and shell-fishing as a complement to the diet.

Mohammed Jaffar phase

This phase is dated 7000-6500 BC. The houses are made of stone and a necropolis is established in the nearby area. The tools are made of flint, with some obsidian use. Polished stone containers, hand mills, mortars, and baskets (sometimes lined with pitch) are in use. Ceramics appeared at the site during this period around 7000 BC; decorated vases, and human and animal figurines are produced. Some materials are imported from other areas, such as copper, and turquoise. There are also other links with the contemporary cultures of the Middle East. During the summer, the herds are moved to the grazing areas in the highland areas. The settlement was no longer occupied after this time.

Earliest agriculture

Ali Kosh was the earliest agricultural community in western Iran, where

emmer Emmer is a hybrid species of wheat, producing edible seeds that have been used as food since ancient times. The domesticated types are ''Triticum turgidum'' subsp. ''dicoccum'' and ''T. t. ''conv.'' durum''. The wild plant is called ''T. t.'' s ...

was already cultivated in the eighth millennium BC. This crop was not native to the area. Wild two-row hulled

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

was also present. Goats and sheep were also herded.Mukhtar Ahmed
Ancient Pakistan – An Archaeological History: Volume II: A Prelude to Civilization.
2014, pp.214-215 Similar site on the Deh Luran plain is Chogha Sefid, and also Tepe Abdul Hosein in Luristan. All three have similar stone tools.

Ganj Dareh Ganj Dareh ( Persian: تپه گنج دره; "Treasure Valley" in Persian, or "Treasure Valley Hill" if tepe/tappeh (hill) is appended to the name) is a Neolithic settlement in western Iran. It is located in the Harsin County in east of Kermans ...

in Luristan (seen on the map), also similar, is even somewhat older than these.

Genetic analysis

Human remains from the area have been analyzed in 2016 for their ancestry. Researchers sequenced the genome from a 30-50-year-old woman from Ganj Dareh. mtDNA analysis shows that she belonged to

Haplogroup X (mtDNA) Haplogroup X is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup. It is found in North America, Europe, Western Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. Haplogroup X diverged from haplogroup N roughly 30,000 years ago (just prior to or during ...

. This article contains quotations from this source, which is available under th
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
license.

Skull modification

In 2017, several skeletons were found by archaeologists in Ali Kosh. 7 crania were found, all showing the evidence of ritual cranial deformation. :"The most striking feature of all crania was their more or less pronounced artificial deformation that was evident in spite of post-mortem alteration and fragmentation of all crania. In all cases circumferential modification was evident, resulting from application of a band wrapped around the cranium ... Artificial cranial deformation was common in the Near East and especially in Iran during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic..." Previously, similar crania were already excavated in the area by Hole and Flannery.

Ritual tooth avulsion

Another unusual cultural practice observed by researchers in these skulls was the ritual front tooth avulsion (removal of one or more teeth). Such a practice was quite common around the world in ancient times. :"Another cultural modification of the head observed at Ali Kosh was avulsion of the upper right first incisor in all adult males, but not in children nor adolescent individuals. ... Tooth avulsion was common during the Early

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

in North Africa,Stojanowskiet al. 2014; De Groote & Humphrey 2016 and it was also occasionally observed in the

Natufian culture The Natufian culture ( ) is an archaeological culture of the late Epipalaeolithic Near East in West Asia from 15–11,500 Before Present. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentism, sedentary or semi-sedentary population even befor ...

..."Arkadiusz Sołtysiak, Hojjat Darabi
Human remains from Ali Kosh, Iran, 2017.
Bioarchaeology of the Near East, 11:76–83 (2017) Short fieldwork report. According to these researchers, such a custom has not been previously reported for the eastern part of the

Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent () is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, together with northern Kuwait, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran. Some authors also include ...

Relative chronology

References

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Bibliography

*F. Hole and K. V. Flannery, ''The Prehistory of Southwestern Iran: A Preliminary Report'', Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 33, 1968 *F. Hole, K. V. Flannery, and J. A. Neely, ''Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Deh Luran Plain''. Memòria 1, Ann Arbor, 1969. *F. Hole, ''Studies in the Archeological History of the Deh Luran Plain''. Memòria 9, Ann Arbor, 1977 *Darabi, H., Richter, T., Sołtysiak, A., Arranz-Otaegui, A., Davoudi, H., & Nishiaki, Y. (2024). Revisiting Neolithic Ali Kosh: New Insights into Settlement Sustainability, Human Mobility, and Subsistence Strategies. Journal of Field Archaeology, 49(7), 527–546. https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2024.2382012 Populated places established in the 8th millennium BC Populated places disestablished in the 7th millennium BC 1960s archaeological discoveries Archaeological discoveries in Iran Tells (archaeology) Neolithic sites of Asia Archaeological sites in Iran Buildings and structures in Khuzestan province Prehistoric Iran National works of Iran