Human occupation along the foothills of Northwestern Zagros during the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene in the Rania and Peshdar plains

Abstract

Since 2012, the French archaeological mission in the Governorate of Soulaimaniah has been exploring the Rania and Peshdar plains in order to understand the evolution of settlement patterns in Northern Mesopotamia from the Palaeolithic to the present day. Newly acquired data from surveys combined with excavations at six prehistoric sites provide the first picture of human settlement patterns in this region from the Palaeolithic to the Chalcolithic. The development of these patterns reveals the presence of a local system that was deeply rooted in the wider Mesopotamian context but was also subject to influence from the Iranian plateau.