An Introduction to caves and rock shelters of Sonqor, Kermanshah Province, Iran

The research layout of surveying Sonqor’s caves and rock shelters has been presented according to the region’s importance in archeological studies, lack of documented data, and necessity of registering most monuments which have been less considered as a result of uneasy access. The need of this project is characterized with regard to former surveys which just considered registering the region’s plains. Sonqor’s caves and rock shelters were specified in this study in assisting of Kermanshah Cultural heritage organization, and necessary actions were taken to document its data. A total of 32 caves, rock shelters and 2 Paleolithic open sites have been acquired in this survey but only 13 of them had cultural material dispersion in front of the entrance. The registered caves and shelters can be divided in to three main groups: - Those caves and shelters, due to the quality and quantity of the collected artifacts, which, assessing their chronological periods is not possible. - Those caves and shelters which we can propose a likely chronology for them, based upon the collected artifacts. - And finally the caves and shelters which are dated partially according to the quality and quantity of their artifacts. Their importance will be more prominent because of the existence of cultural Paleolithic deposits in these sites. Anyhow, this study tries to consider the following aspects as well as aforesaid most important executive goals. 1- Studying and presenting the chronological identified sites in comparison. 2- Presenting the identified sites’ dispersion plan.