Preliminary Report on the First Season of Archaeological Survey and Reconnaissance in Town of Qal’eh Ganj

Chāh-e Khodādād is one of two districts of the present town of Qal’eh Ganj in the most southern place of Kerman province. It is the trijunction of three provinces of Kerman, Hormozgan and Sistan & Baluchistan. The first season of archaeological survey and reconnaissance of town of Qal’eh Ganj has been carried out as a part of the Iranian National Archaeological Map Project in which the authors tried to clarify the cultural status of the region in different periods in Chāh-e Khodādād District. In addition to the purposes as mentioned above, the present research attempts to analyse and compound the results of this research and to discern regional and trans-regional connections and interactions with the neighbouring areas. This region has a strategic situation because it lies at the trijunction of three significant culturalgeographical zones in the southeast of Iran (Mokrān shores, the Persian Gulf shores and Halīlrūd Rūd (Halīl River). Based on the survey, 66 sites and properties have been identified and registered which belong to the Paleolithic (3 cases), 5th millennium BC (2 cases), 4th millennium BC (10 cases), 3rd millennium BC (27 cases), historical period (29 cases), the Islamic period (3 cases) and the recent century (2 cases). This survey which begins with an investigation on some cases dating back to the middle of the Paleolithic is in line with other similar researches, but it is the starting point of a series of studies in the area in question as well as in the southeast of Iran. The preliminary findings prove, at least, the noticeable potentials of the area under study for further Paleolithic researches. Considering the morphology and forms of the settlements, all of the recollected sites have been divided into eight types of sites including large compound sites, historical cemeteries, ancient tepes (mounds), archaeometallurgical sites, religious buildings, fortresses, petroglyphs and ancient sites with a few numbers of cultural materials. The sites as mentioned earlier which are morphologically
Stone Tools unearthed in the Paleolithic Sites in Town of Qal’eh Ganj
influenced by the geographical factors of their places can be categorised into two different types: plain areas and foothill and mountainous areas. The analysis of the preliminary findings as well as other few investigations in the neighbouring regions in the northern heights of the Persian Gulf including the vast sites of the Bronze Age in the seasonal riversides of the sites under study, these findings can function as a bridge between basin of Jazmurian and the northern shores of the Persian Gulf.