Chia Jani 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 ...

n Iran's Kermanshah Province. It is located near the village of Palang Gerd, on the Qouchemi stream, which flows to the Ravand River about south, in the south central part of the Islamabad Plain in the west-central

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 ...

Excavation

The site was discovered by Kamyar Abdi during archaeological surveys of the plain in 1999. The site dates to the early (

Aceramic Aceramic is defined as "not producing pottery". In archaeology, the term means "without pottery". Aceramic societies usually used bark, basketry, gourds and leather for containers. It is sometimes used to refer to a specific early Neolithic perio ...

) and middle

Neolithic period The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

. Parts of the site are washed off by the Qouchemi stream and damaged due to the expansion of agricultural land. Its lithic industry is characterized by bladelet production, some of which are made from obsidian. Other notable materials include the so-called "tadpole ware" (ca 6000 BC) of the middle Neolithic period and plano-convex bricks reported from early to middle Neolithic sites in the region, including

Ganj Dareh Ganj Dareh ( Persian: تپه گنج دره; "Treasure Valley" in Persian,Smith, Philip E.LArchitectural Innovation and Experimentation at Ganj Dareh, Iran '' World Archaeology'', Vol. 21, No. 3 (February, 1990), pp. 323-335 or "Treasure Valle ...

and the nearby ''Sarab, Asiab'' about 60km northeast, and Jarmo, in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

, to the northwest. Plans for excavations at Chia Jani, funded by a grant from the

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, an ...

, came to a halt with the

2003 invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...

that rendered Islamabad Plain, only from the Iraqi border, unsafe for an international archaeological expedition.

Relative chronology

References

*Abdi, K., 2000 ''Islamabad'' 1999. Iran 38:162. *Abdi, K., 2003 "The Early Development of Pastoralism in the Central Zagros Mountains", ''Journal of World Prehistory'', Vol. 17, No. 4: 395-448

External links

Dartmouth Department of Anthropology
{{Neolithic Southwest Asia 1999 archaeological discoveries Neolithic sites of Asia Former populated places in Iran Archaeological sites in Iran