Zayandeh River Culture (تمدن زاینده رود, literally "'' Zāyandé-Rūd Civilization''") is a hypothetical

pre-historic Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

culture that is theorized to have flourished around the

Zayandeh River Zayanderud ( fa, Zāyanderud, script=Latn, from "fertile" or "life giver", and "river"), also spelled as ''Zayandeh-Rood'' or ''Zayanderood'', is the largest river of the Iranian Plateau in central Iran. Geography The Zayandeh starts in t ...

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 ...

in the 6th millennium BC. Archaeologists speculate that a possible early

civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). ...

existed along the banks of the Zayandeh River, developing at the same time as other ancient civilizations appeared alongside rivers in the region, such as the Sumerian civilization 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 ...

and the Indus Valley civilization in

ancient India According to consensus in modern genetics, anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. Quote: "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by m ...

. The Zayandeh River Culture is considered as a very important Neolithic Iranian settlement, along with

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 ...

Link with Sialk and Marvdasht civilizations

During the 2006 excavations, the

ian archaeologists uncovered some artifacts that they linked to those from

Sialk Tepe Sialk ( fa, تپه سیلک) is a large ancient archeological site (a ''tepe'', "hill, tell") in a suburb of the city of Kashan, Isfahan Province, in central Iran, close to Fin Garden. The culture that inhabited this area has been linked t ...

and

Marvdasht Marvdasht ( fa, مرودشت, also romanized as Marv Dasht) is a city and the capital of Marvdasht County, Fars Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 123,858, in 29,134 families. Name Some historians hold that Marvdasht was ...

.CHN Press, Zayandeh Rood Civilization Linked to Marvdasht and Sialk,
link

Archaeological discoveries

Previous archeological excavations in the Zayandeh River basin unearthed a 50,000-year-old cave containing

Human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

and

Animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...

remains. "Following archaeological studies, we are going to excavate two historical hills, one of which is alongside Zayaneh River midway, and the other in the Gav khooni swamp." said Mohsen Javeri, head of archaeological studies of the Cultural Heritage of Isfahan. According to Javeri, both of the selected hills of the site for belong to the

period, but their exact date is not yet known. During the 2004 excavations within the perimeters of Isfahan city, it was determined that the city dates back to earlier than the 6th millennium BC.

Sources and references

{{coord missing, Isfahan Province Archaeological sites in Iran History of Isfahan Province