The Cultural Contact Between Central Zagros and Central Plateau During the 4th Millennium B.C.: Further Evidence from Shat Ghilah, Malayer

Cultural relation and cultural interaction among the prehistoric cultures of the Iranian Plateau have been always understood and perceived through the perspective of cultural zoning of Iran. Traditionally, resemblance between cultural materials, especially ceramic assemblages, has been anchored to approach understanding such interactions between different cultures. Before the 4th Millennium B.C. there is a few, if any, convincing evidence of cultural contact between the Central Zagros and Central Plateau. Y. Majidzadeh was the first who indicated the similarities between ceramic assemblages of Tappeh Ghabrestan in the Central Plateau with those of Godin VII and VI periods of the Central Zagros. During the past decade further evidence, mainly as ceramic collection, was obtained through archaeological fieldworks in the eastern portion of the Central Zagros manifesting further cultural contacts between these two regions. In 2007 a rescue excavation was conducted at an endangered site behind the Kalan Dam near Malayer. The site, Shat Ghilah, was a sherd scatter located on the right bank of the Kalan River, on a terrace 7 m above the river bed. The site had no visible height and its identification was possible only by a layer of sherds, about 80 m in length, protruding from the river-cut-section of the site. The surface sherd assemblage was a mixture of prehistoric and late Islamic pottery. Excavation at this site was part of the larger project of rescue excavations at some endangered sites identified in the reservoir area of the Kalan Dam. After the dam was completed the reservoir submerged the site. Three small trenches have been excavated at Shat Ghilah in the spring of 2007. Tr. 1, 4x3 m, was put on the edge of the river-cut section and was excavated to the depth of 230 cm below the surface. No trace of architecture or any feature was revealed but pottery-rich loose deposit which lay on a steep natural ground. No interface could be observed in the excavated profiles, suggesting a same formation process of the sequence. Trenches 2 and 3, each 2x2 m, was excavated aiming to find more tangible evidence pertaining to the nature of the site. These trenches proved to be devoid of any primary contexts, but produced a few stray ceramics associated with erosion-derived loose debris. Putting together the stratigraphic information obtained from the excavated trenches, it seems likely that most of the original site has been already washed away by Kalan River during the past millennia. Based on the length of the ceramic-rich layer exposed in the eroded section (some 80 m) and what the excavated trenches provided, it could be hypothesized that the original site was not probably larger than one hectare. While ceramic finds of Trenches 2 and 3 lack a reliable stratigraphic position, those of Trench 1 are well-stratified, abundant and mostly characteristic. Generally speaking, the ceramic assemblage of Shat Ghilah can be divided into two major groups: Buff Ware and Orange Ware; the former contains both plain and painted specimens, while the latter includes just plain ceramic. Ceramic comparisons, especially of Buff Ware, show a clear resemblance between the Shat Ghilah assemblage and those of the Godin VII and VI periods. The closest parallels, however, come from the Godin VI:3 and VI:2 Phases, manifesting a high percentage of painted ceramics than the preceding period. Other close parallels for Shat Ghilah ceramics are found farther in the east and north, in the Central Plateau, at the south mound of Sialk (Sialk III4-7b) in the Kashan Plain and Qabrestan in the Qazvin Plain, suggesting the cultural orientation of the site toward those areas.