The prehistory of the Iranian plateau is conventionally divided into the Paleolithic, Epipaleolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age periods. It spans the time from the first settlement by archaic humans, approximately one million years ago, to the beginning of the historical record during the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BC. It is part of the broader prehistory of the Near East.
Paleolithic
Iran, characterized by a wide range of geographic variation and resources, is considered one of the potential routes for early human migrations toward southern and eastern Asia. Evidence of early hominin populations includes stone artifacts discovered in gravel deposits along the Kashafrud River Basin in eastern Iran, the Mashkid and Ladiz Rivers in the southeast, the Sefidrud River in the north, and the Mahabad River in the northwest, along with isolated finds in the western and northwestern parts of the country. Major early human occupation sites include Kashafrud in Khorasan, Mashkid and Ladiz in Sistan, Shiwatoo in Kurdistan, Ganj Par in Gilan, Darband Cave in Gilan, Khaleseh in Zanjan, and Pal Barik in Ilam. These sites date from roughly one million to 200,000 years ago.
Mousterian stone tools made by Neanderthals have been found in various parts of the country. Cultural remains of Neanderthals dating to the Middle Paleolithic period are concentrated in the Zagros region and central Iran at sites such as Kobeh, Kaldar, Bisetun, Qaleh Bozi, Tamtama, and Warwasi. In 1949, a Neanderthal radius was discovered by C. S. Coon in Bisitun Cave. In October 2018, the tooth of a six-year-old Neanderthal child was discovered in the mountains of Kermanshah province, together with Middle Paleolithic tools.
Evidence for the Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic periods is known mainly from the Zagros region, particularly in the caves of Kermanshah and Khorramabad, such as Yafteh Cave, as well as a few sites in the Alborz range and Central Iran.
Epipaleolithic
The end of the Paleolithic, called the Epipaleolithic, spans approximately 7,000 years, from roughly 18,000 to 11,000 BC. During this period, groups of hunter-gatherers mostly lived in the caves of the Zagros Mountains. Compared to earlier groups, there was a tendency toward increasing the number of kinds of plants and animals collected and hunted. Not only smaller vertebrates were hunted, but also pistachios and wild fruit were collected. The consumption of snails and smaller aquatic animals such as crabs also appears during this period.
Neolithic to Chalcolithic
Little is known about the 2,500 years following the Epipaleolithic after 11,000 BC. The site of Asiab (c. 8500–8000 BC) in the Kermanshah area represents a small, seasonally inhabited camp of hunter-gatherers where wild goats and sheep were hunted and great numbers of snail shells were found.
More constantly occupied settlements in the Zagros date from between 8,000 and 6,800 BC. The material culture of Tappeh Ganj Dareh and Tappeh Abdul Hosein does not include pottery, and this period is often called the "aceramic Neolithic." This is also true for the oldest levels of Tappeh Guran in Lorestan, as well as the sites of Ali Kosh and Chogha Sefid in the plain of Deh Luran, west of the Zagros Mountains. At these sites, flocks of sheep and herds of goats were kept for the first time, representing a fundamental reorientation of the Neolithic inhabitants of Iran connected with other innovations, particularly house architecture. Tools for harvesting and making cereal products exist, but remnants of burned grain are extremely rare, so the extent of cereal cultivation during this period is not definitively established.
In the eighth millennium BC, agricultural communities such as Chogha Bonut (the earliest village in Susiana) began to form in western Iran. Around the same time, the earliest known clay vessels and modeled human and animal terracotta figurines were produced at Ganj Dareh and Teppe Sarab. The southwestern part of Iran was part of the Fertile Crescent. Settlements such as Susa (founded possibly as early as 4395 cal BC) and Chogha Mish (dating back to 6800 BC) are among the oldest agricultural sites. Seven-thousand-year-old jars of wine excavated in the Zagros Mountains are now on display at the University of Pennsylvania, and ruins of 7,000-year-old settlements such as Tepe Sialk provide further evidence of early agricultural life.
Bronze Age
Parts of modern-day northwestern Iran were part of the Kura–Araxes culture (circa 3400–2000 BC), which extended into the neighboring regions of the Caucasus and Anatolia.
Susa is one of the oldest-known settlements of Iran and the world. Based on carbon-14 dating, the time of the city's foundation is as early as 4395 BC, predating the age of civilization in Mesopotamia. The general perception among archaeologists is that Susa was an extension of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk. In its later history, Susa became the capital of Elam, which emerged as a state around 4000 BC. Dozens of prehistoric sites across the Iranian plateau point to the existence of ancient cultures and urban settlements in the fourth millennium BC.
One of the earliest civilizations on the Iranian plateau was the Jiroft culture in southeastern Iran in the province of Kerman. It is one of the most artifact-rich archaeological sites in the Middle East. Excavations in Jiroft led to the discovery of objects belonging to the fourth millennium BC, including items decorated with distinctive engravings of animals, mythological figures, and architectural motifs. Many are made from chlorite, a gray-green soft stone; others are in copper, bronze, terracotta, and lapis lazuli. Some Iranian archaeologists believe the discovered inscriptions represent the most ancient script found so far, and that the Elamite written language may have originated in Jiroft.
The Early Bronze Age saw the rise of urbanization into organized city-states and the invention of writing (the Uruk period) in the Near East. While Bronze Age Elam made use of writing from an early time, the Proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered, and records from Sumer pertaining to Elam are scarce.
Early Iron Age
Records become more tangible with the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its records of incursions from the Iranian plateau. As early as the 20th century BC, tribes came to the Iranian plateau from the Pontic–Caspian steppe. The arrival of Iranian peoples on the plateau forced the Elamites to relinquish areas of their empire and to take refuge in Elam, Khuzestan, and the nearby area. By the mid-first millennium BC, Medes, Persians, and Parthians populated the Iranian plateau. Until the rise of the Medes, they remained under Assyrian domination, like the rest of the Near East. In the first half of the first millennium BC, parts of what is now Iranian Azerbaijan were incorporated into Urartu.
The prehistory of Iran is a well-established field of study, documented extensively through archaeological research and covered in major reference works including the Encyclopaedia Iranica and the Cambridge History of Iran.
