Bisitun Cave (also called "Hunter's cave", Bisotun arsi Bisetoun

urdish Urdish (or Urglish), a portmanteau of Urdu and English, is the macaronic hybrid use of English and Urdu in Pakistan, involving code-switching between these languages whereby they are freely interchanged within a sentence or between sentences. The ...

Bisitoun, or Behistoun) is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology a ...

of prehistoric human habitation in the

Zagros Mountains The Zagros Mountains ( ar, جبال زاغروس, translit=Jibal Zaghrus; fa, کوه‌های زاگرس, Kuh hā-ye Zāgros; ku, چیاکانی زاگرۆس, translit=Çiyakani Zagros; Turkish: ''Zagros Dağları''; Luri: ''Kuh hā-ye Zāgr ...

in the Kermanshah province, north-west

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. Bisitun Cave is one of five caves situated at the base of The Rock of Bisitun, a high cliff within the Chamchamal Plain. It was first excavated in 1949 by Carlton Coon, and is notable for the discovery of

Mousterian The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the l ...

stone tools of the Middle Paleolithic, as well as the remains of 109 identifiable species of Pleistocene mammals, and hominid remains. Harold Dibble described the stone tools as having strong Levallois components. All artefacts are apparently from the same period. It has not been possible to discern a geological age of the Middle Paleolithic levels at Bisitun Cave. However, the relative abundance of ''

Cervus ''Cervus'' is a genus of deer that primarily are native to Eurasia, although one species occurs in northern Africa and another in North America. In addition to the species presently placed in this genus, it has included a whole range of othe ...

'' in the deposits suggests a nearby woodland, and such vegetation is indicative of a warmer later Pleistocene phase. In Southwestern Asia in general, the Middle Paleolithic falls between the Later Middle Pleistocene (

Marine Isotope Stage Marine isotope stages (MIS), marine oxygen-isotope stages, or oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's paleoclimate, deduced from oxygen isotope data reflecting changes in temperature derived from data f ...

6/7) and the middle of the Last Glacial (mid Marine Isotope Stage-3). Therefore the age of Bisitun Cave is likely to fall within this period also.

Hominin remains

Coon described two hominid remains from the site, a maxilliary upper incisor and a radius shaft fragment, both from a layer designated F+. These remains were listed but never described fully for the palaeontological community. When they were finally re-examined four decades later, the incisor was found to be

bovid The Bovidae comprise the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes cattle, bison, buffalo, antelopes, and caprines. A member of this family is called a bovid. With 143 extant species and 300 known extinct species, ...

in origin, rather than hominin. The radius fragment was found to show Neanderthal affinities, as it is mediolaterally expanded at the interosseus crest. The radius fragment also showed signs of scavenging carnivores or rodents, such as jackal and fox, the remains of which were also found at the site.

Hominin remains

See also

References

Further reading