Chronology in Northern Slops of Central Alborz Mountain During the Bronze Age based on the Ghale-Ben Excavation in Babol, Mazandaran

While some parts of the Iranian plateau suffered from cultural disruptions, social crises and environmental changes during the third millennium BCE, the northern strip (i.e., Mazandaran province) and northeastern of Iran experienced one of the brightest periods of socio-economic development and rise of urban centers. Mazandaran province is located in the middle of the northern front of the central Alborz and is one of the most unknown parts of Iran in term of the establishment texture in third millennium. Lack of independent and purposeful researches in the northern parts of the Central Alborz and the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, especially in Mazandaran province, has led to an insufficient and inappropriate understanding of the Bronze Age developments, and following that has made us not have a favorable opportunity for comparative research and study of cultural interactions with the surrounding areas, compared to other regions of the Iranian plateau. Therefore, the need to review previous archaeological activities and the results of excavations of key sites of the Bronze Age such as Ghal-e-Ben in Babol, to study the chronology of this area was felt, Therefore, this article tries to provide a framework for the chronology of Central Alborz by studying and analyzing the results of the Bronze Age excavations in the region as well as the information obtained from the excavations of the Bozroud pey area (Ghal-e-Ben) of Babol. This study is an attempt to provide a framework for the chronology of the Central Alborz by studying and analyzing the results of the Bronze Age excavations in the region and the information obtained from the excavations of the Bozrudpey Site of Babol. By excavating the Bozrudpey Site, performing chronological studies in that site, and providing an accurate chronological table of all its layers, we studied and developed the chronological framework, cultural interaction and, the settlement pattern of the northern border of the Central Alborz during the Bronze Age..
Introduction
We consider Mazandaran province as a part of the cultural area of northeastern Iran, which has extended to the Sombar valley in western Turkmenistan. Although Mazandaran province has been influenced by the cultures of Gorgan plain and northeastern Iran in its starting point, but over time we see that Mazandaran should be considered as a “special cultural territory” whose pottery composition reflects the cultural territory of this part of Iran. Which slowly spreads to other parts of Alborz and outside its geographical environment, so that if we look at large parts of the southern front of Alborz, from the valley of Taleghan to the lower plains of Damghan and Semnan, the people of this region are well in Mazandaran language and dialect they talked and we believe that traces of cultural development of Mazandaran in the Bronze and Iron Ages can be seen in the southern parts of Alborz. Therefore, the formation of the ؛historical geography of Mazandaran؛ started from the Bronze Age and evolved in the Iron Age and accommodated very rich cultures over time and space. As we will discuss in this article, gray pottery was widespread in all bronze phases of Mazandaran, and unlike the Gorgan plain, where gray pottery was very diverse in shape and form, Mazandaran had a lower intensity during the Bronze Age.
 
Bozroud Pey (Ghale-Ben) Area of Babol Province
Bozroud pey (Ghal e -Ben) Area is one of the index areas of the Bronze Age in the central part of Mazandaran in the city of Khoshroudpey, Babol province, located in the western part of Band pey sector (Fig: 1), which is 66 meters above sea level and has following longitude and latitude coordinates. N: 36 23.17 / 84 E: 52 34.12 / 55. Also, this area has been registered in the list of national monuments with the number of 31367. In the first season of the excavation of Ghal e -Ben of the Bozroud pey 2019, four trenches opened consist of X-35, Q-31, W-32 and AB-27(fig: 2,3). In this paper, in order to know more about the chronological status of the area, we will deal with the results of two layering boreholes whose cultural layers have been absolutely dated.
 
Conclusion
The absolute and relative chronology of Ghal e-Ben (four main periods of 1) Chalcolithic period from 3200 to 3000 BCE, Caspian Black on Red Ware. 2) start from 3000 BCE and ends 2500 BCE consists of three sub-pahses of grey pottery type comparable to Gohar-Tepe, Yaghut Tape, kelar, Gal e-kesh, Tarkam, Shah Tepe II, Turang IIIA, Narges Tepe IIIC and Hesar IIB-III.3) thw third periods starts from 2500 BCE and ends 2000 BCE with combinations of Grey Wares (comparable with the Gorgan plain, northeastern Iran and most of Mazandaran Bronze Age sites) and also Transcaucasia ceramic types. 4) the last phase back to 2000-1500 BCE and their forms and decoration comparable with Gohar Tepe, Yaghut Tepe, Gal e- kesh, Gal e- pey, Hissar IIIC, Shah Tepe IIA, Turang Tepe IIIC and Narges Tepe IIIA. also, the upper layers of Ghal e-Ben belong to Islamic centuries 10 to 19 AD.
The present article can be considered as one of the most serious research in Mazandaran that allows us to have more accurately the emergence of Bronze Age of Mazandaran, how human societies arised in this part of Iran and went through the process of social and cultural complexities while collapsed during the middle of the second millennium. We should consider that do not know yet much about the origin and the cause of migration and population explosion during the third millennium BC in this part of Iran and archaeologically needs further studies to address this cultural and economic variation. However, tracs of Silk III Chalcolithic southern Alborz Mountain reveal some low degree of contact between the two sides of north and south of Alborz Mountain (Heidari, 2016; Heidari et al, 2021). it seems that in the early Hissar II period (3600 -3400) Sialk culture III3-7 has penetrated into the eastern of Mazandaran through the Damghan region. However, Barbara Helwing (Helwing 2006) and Christopher Thornton (Thornton et al. 2013) precisely depict the “cultural orientation” of the Hissar from West (north of the central plateau) to the north / northeast and Gorgan plain (Thornton, 2013; Thornton et al., 2013).
At the end of the fourth millennium BC, the southern and southeastern basins of the Caspian Sea, especially Mazandaran province, established their cultural interactions with the Gorgan plain and the northeast   with the occurrence of “Caspian Black on Red Ceramic”. Due to the fact that in the lower layers of Gohar Tepe, Qaleh Kesh and Ghal e –Ben (plan: 1) (related to the late fourth millennium BC) in Mazandaran province, this type of red pottery with black motifs has been identifiedwhich support the connection of Mazandaran with the Grogan plain with sites such as Shah Tepe III-IIb, Turang Tepe IIA, Tepe Hissar and in Sombar cemetery in the second half of the 4th millennium BC (Olson, Thornton, 2019: 18). Gray pottery of Ghal e- Ben address intra-regional scale of communication similar with Gohar Tepe (Mahforouzi, 2007), Yaghoot Tepe (Mahforouzi, 2006), Tepe Kelar (Mousavi Kouhpar and Abbasnejad Sarasti, 2007), Qaleh Kesh (Amirkalaei, 2009), Qaleh Pey (Mahforouzi, 2009), Terkam Tepe (Mahforouzi, 2010) and Tepe Abbasi (Abbasnejad Sarasti, 2009) in Mazandaran province. On the other hand, on a trans-regional scale, the traces of such interaction can be seen in Hissar IIB-IIIA-BC (Schmidt, 1937), Shah Tepe IIA-B (Arne, 1945), Turang Tepe (Deshayes, 1976) and Narges Tapeh III (Abbasi, 1390). Also, the existence of several pieces of pottery of Kora-Aras types has been found among the pottery of the early Bronze Age in Ghal e -Ben. In terms of construction technique, color and style, these potteries are similar with Transcaucasia type (Mousavi Kouhpar and Abbasnejad Sarasti, 2007) (plan: 2,3,4).