Kashafrud Basin(کشفرود) is an
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
site in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
, known for the
Lower Palaeolithic artifacts collected there; these are the oldest-known evidence for human occupation of Iran.
Kashafrud includes a cluster of sites which are located 35 km to 85 km southeast of
Mashhad
Mashhad ( ; ), historically also known as Mashad, Meshhed, or Meshed in English, is the List of Iranian cities by population, second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. ...
, near the Kashfarud River. The French geologist Claude Thibault, in collaboration with the Iranian geologist Ali Ariai, conducted surveys in the Kashfrud basin east of Mashhad in 1974–75, during which 80 stone artifacts were collected from seven open areas.
Collections
The largest of these collections were found near the village of Abravan and other large collections in Chahak and Baghbaghu. The survey identified three major
alluvial units that are roughly attributed to the Lower, Middle, and upper
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
. Many of the findings are attributed to the Lower Pleistocene gravel layer that lies on a thick layer of sand. In an article, Thibaut published the results of a preliminary study of stone artifacts and their geological context in 1977.
The discovered collection was sent to the
National Museum of Iran after the examination. The collection was transferred to the Paleolithic Department of the Museum in the early 2000s and was re-examined by
Fereidoun Biglari. His re-analysis of the collection revealed that some of the specimens are naturally broken quartz fragments.
[Biglari, F. and Shidrang, S., (2006) The Lower Paleolithic Occupation of Iran, Near Eastern Archeology 69 (3–4): 160-168] But most specimens are man-made and include
core-chopper,
simple flakes, and tools such as
scrapers,
notches, and
borers.
On the basis of their geological contexts, this collection is more than 800,000 years old.
[Dennell, R. (2008). The paleolithic settlement of Asia. Cambridge University Press.] Thus, Kashfar Rud is one of the oldest human settlements in Iran.
A number of stone tools discovered by Kashafrud are displayed in the Paleolithic Hall of the National Museum of Iran
See
There are some collections of simple core and flake stone artifacts collected by C. Thibault in 1974–75. The tools are
Olduwan-like and mainly made of
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
. Thibault suggested a
Lower Pleistocene age (more than 800,000 years ago) for the localities. The lithic assemblages were re-analyzed in
National Museum of Iran and the results are published in a general synthesis about Iranian Lower Paleolithic.
See also
*
Kashafrud River
References
{{Reflist
* Ariai, A., and C. Thibault, 1975-77 "Nouvelles precisions à propos de l'outillage paleolithique ancient sur galets du Khorassan (Iran)," Paléorient 3, pp. 101–8
* Biglari, F. and S. Shidrang, 2006 "The Lower Paleolithic Occupation of Iran", Near Eastern Archaeology 69(3–4): 160-168
Paleolithic
Prehistoric Iran
Archaeological sites in Iran