A Structural Analysis of the Late Early Bronze Age Pottery from Kohna Shahar, West Azerbaijan, Iran

Systematic excavations of 2012 and 2014 at the Early Bronze Age site of Kohna Shahar, situated in northwestern quadrant of West Azerbaijan Province, have brought to light new evidence. The available data on the pottery from the site comes merely from surface surveys, and no archaeometric and mineralogical analyses have been undertaken on its pottery assemblage. The sample examined in the present work consisted of handmade black-gray, red and yellow ceramics of the late third millennium B.C., which derived from a single stratum and a single phase (settlement phase 5), and was selected by virtue of the typological variations that existed between some of the red ware instances and those of black-gray forms. Accordingly, mineralogical analysis was conducted and the similarities and dissimilarities between the two groups, i.e. black-gray and red forms, were established. Results of thin-section petrography and x-ray diffraction suggested that the examined sample had a similar composition and mineralogy, with the entire specimen having been locally manufactured. Both groups of the ceramics were fired below 850°C, and merely differed from each other in terms of and firing technique.