A Morphological Typology of the Ancient Sites in Kouhrang Area

Stone-heaped graves are among the most frequent sites identified during the Kouhrang surveys. They are always in the shape of individual heaps of local stones which bear, on the basis on the few excavated examples, more than one stone-aligned grave chamber. In most cases one to four of them could be recognized alongside the crest of the stone ridges, but examples of as many as 10 are observed in certain places. The field observations show that overwhelming majorities of them have been plundered and ruined in the past. The majority of such sites, on the basis of surface sherds, could be attributed to the Achaemenid and Parthian periods. Pre-Islamic cemeteries are characterized as clusters of stone heaps and in most cases it is hard to be differentiated from stone heaps that have been collected from the farmlands by the locals. Other categories of sites have a rather low frequency in the survey area. One of the interesting points about the Kouhrang surveys is the low frequency of classic mounded sites which are, normally, among the most numerous occurring sites in other places in the Iranian Plateau. The types and frequencies of the surveyed sites clearly shows that the Kouhrang area has been the favorite niche for ancient nomadic people as do for the modern ones.