Influence of Kura-Araxes Culture on the Inner Margins of East Central Zagros (Based on Archaeological Research on Chal Tepe Pirtaj, Kurdistan)

There are few studies in the Bijar region. The only excavation in the area is the excavation of the Gheshlagh Tepe which is carried out in three seasons by the Motarjem and sharifi. The result was the continuation of the settlement from the Early, to Late Chalcolithic Period (Sharifi & Motarjem, 2014). But no site of the Early Bronze Age has been excavated in the region. So paying attention to the Pirtaj Mound is very important, because excavation on this mound led to the identification of a site from the Early Bronze Age in the high-altitude region between the east of the central Zagros and the southern basin of the Lake Urmia. While cultural relations of the two regions were previously discussed in Archaeological studies, there was still no information available on the existence of intermediary locations. The Pirtaj mound is located at 35 K.M of the Bijar township, Kurdistan province, with Geographical coordinates (UTM: 39 S 241720.60, 3960714.02) and 1688m height above the sea level.The mound consists of an ancient stack with dimensions of 140 and a width of 120 meters and a height of 5 meters. Two sounds were excavated on this mound. In the sound of T.T.10. three layers identified. The first layer is Agricultural accumulation and the second and third layer are cultural Accumulation belonged to the Early bronze Age. The pieces of pottery, bones and ash remains are the cultural materials available in this sound. In the excavation of the T.T.11 sound, four layers were identified. The two upper layers represent the cultural accumulation Belonging to the Early bronze Age and the two lower layers represent sedimentary deposits. Due to the sequence of layers in this sound, the cultural layers of the Pirtaj are formed on the surface of a low-volume and low-level natural hill.
Keywords: Kura-Araxes Culture, East Central Zagros,Tepe Chal.
 
Introduction
The Pirtaj project is a long-term research program in the central part of the Central Zagros. This Archaeological mound is one of the most important areas of the Kura-Araxes culture in the region. In this article, in summary, the results of its excavations are presented.
About 3200-3000 BC, vast sections of the northwest and west of Iran came under the influence of a new ethnic occupation, whose cultural characteristics differed from those of previous cultures (Burney 1961: 138; Sagona 2004: 80).In the Early third millennium BC, huge changes occurred due to massive population movements and displacements that affected large areas of the Caucasus (Kushnareva, 1997), Asia Minor, and Iran (Kiguradze & Sagona, 2003; kohl 2004). This period was the beginning of wide cultural change. Many Archaeologists consider the Caucasus as the origin of this culture and they are called it the Kura-Araxes culture, because the settlement areas of this culture have been identified between the two Kura and Aras rivers (Kohl ,2009; Kigguradze, 2003) and then expanded to adjacent areas. Other Russian Archaeologists such as Piotrovski and Munchaev introduced this culture in the name of the Neolithic-Chalcolithic of the Caucasus cultures (Batiuk & Rothman, 2007: 16). In Iran, this culture was the first discovered from the Yanik Tepe, also known as the Yanik culture. In the northwest of Iran, in addition to Yanik Tepe (Burney ,1964), Goy Tepe (Brown ,1951), Haftvan Tepe (Burney 1973), and in the west of Iran in the Godin VI (Young 1969) has been achieved. In recent years, in the Hamedan Plain, the Pisa mound was excavated which is belong to the Bronze Age, which led to identification of the Kura-Araxes culture (Mohamadifar & Motarjem ,2015: 1).
One of the most prominent features of this culture is the circular and quadrangles planes. Charles Burney believes that those were the nomads people (Burney and Lang, 1958: 52). In Iran, the largest areas associated to the Yanik culture are reported from the northwest of Iran, but the Pirtaj of Bijar district was not under consider, where it is the corridor between the northwestern and the east central Zagros of Iran. So this article investigates the Early bronze Age culture in this area.
The excavation of the Pirtaj mound carried out by the aim of identifying the establishment sequence and examining the role of the region in the development of the Kura-Araxes culture. The issue that is the largest cultural phenomenon in the Near East, can provide a valuable insight into the development of this culture in one of the eastern most parts of the central Zagros. One of the reasons for the expansion of this culture seems to be the environmental changes in the Trans-Caucasian and increase in population and the shortage of environmental resources.
 
Pirtaj Mound
There are few studies in the Bijar region. The only excavation in the area is the excavation of the Gheshlagh Tepe which is carried out in three seasons by the Motarjem and Sharifi. The result was the continuation of the settlement from the Early, to Late Chalcolithic Period (Sharifi & Motarjem, 2014). But no site of the Early Bronze Age has been excavated in the region. So paying attention to the Pirtaj Mound is very important, because excavation on this mound led to the identification of a site from the Early Bronze Age in the high-altitude region between the east of the central Zagros and the southern basin of the Lake Urmia. While cultural relations of the two regions were previously discussed in Archaeological studies, there was still no information available on the existence of intermediary locations.
The Pirtaj mound is located at 35 K.M of the Bijar township, Kurdistan province, with Geographical coordinates (UTM: 39 S 241720.60, 3960714.02) and 1688m height above the sea level. The mound consists of an ancient stack with dimensions of 140 and a width of 120 meters and a height of 5 meters. Two sounds were excavated on this mound. In the sound of T.T.10. three layers identified. The first layer is Agricultural accumulation and the second and third layer are cultural Accumulation belonged to the Early bronze Age. The pieces of pottery, bones and ash remains are the cultural materials available in this sound. In the excavation of the T.T.11 sound, four layers were identified. The two upper layers represent the cultural accumulation Belonging to the Early bronze Age and the two lower layers represent sedimentary deposits. Due to the sequence of layers in this sound, the cultural layers of the Pirtaj are formed on the surface of a low-volume and low-level natural hill.
 
Conclusion
The early Bronze Age pottery of the Pirtaj mound is divided into two groups of simple and carving motif pottery.
The Early bronze Age pottery form are: openings mouth bowels, close mouth crocks, opening mouth crocks, handles and bottom. The pottery is made up by black and gray section with polished and burned surfaces. They are hand-made and baking process of them are not well done. The variety of form and motif is another feature of them. The crocks are similar to crocks of Shengavit district (Rothman ,2015). The dishes have carving motifs which filled up by gypsum and decorated them. The motif is divided into four groups: 1- Triangular triangles, corrugated ornaments 2- the circle spiral 3- the carving lines vertical rectangular, similar to those of the Asia Minor, Erzurum area, (Figure. 6, p: 58, Isikil 2015) and Mus Plain (Rothman, 2015, Amiran 1968). Triangular carving decoration is common in the Sos Hoyul (Sagona 1999 No. 4, fig. 1, p: 154, no 1, fig 5, p:418 Karagündüz Höyüğü, Sevin et al 1999). In the Iran, this decoration has been seen in Godin VI (No 15, p. 73, Young, 1969). 4- The other group is the motif of the sun (Figure 5). The Circular rings design in the Erzurum region (Isikil 2015) and in Armenia in the Karnut region was common (Iserlis et al., 2010, Figure. 8, p: 259). From the T.T.10 sound a metal sheet, as well as stone tools were also found.
The results of the Pirtaj excavations led to the identification of the Kura-Araxes culture in the region. The Kohl says the most Kura-Araxes settlements are small. They are rarely more than 5 Hectares in size (Kohl & Trifonov 2014:1580). The Pirtaj is also a small community, whose cultural material represents the familiarity of the inhabitants with the cultural tradition of the Kura-Araxes. The remains of Architecture are not found, but the pottery variety is very interesting. The presence of ethnics to the burnished gray pottery, represents a massive population movement from the northwest basin to parts of the eastern central Zagros. This region plays an important and effective role in the cultural transfer of the development and expansion of the Kura-Araxes to the southern regions of the central Zagros. The extensive excavation in this area can be considered a new horizon at one of the key points of the Early Bronze Age in the east of central Zagros.