The Settlement Patterns of Middle Chalcolithic Sites in the Talvar River Basin, Dehgolan and Ghorveh Counties, Kurdestan Province, Iran

This article discusses the settlement patterns of the middle chalcolithic sites in the Talvar river Basin in an area expanding from the river tributaries to its fairly lower bed eastwardly. The river basin is mostly placed within the both counties of Dehgolan and Ghorveh in Kurdestan Province. The archaeological investigations indicated the rise of occupation and presumably even its beginning in the chalcolithic period coinciding with various ways of life sustenance. In terms of size, elevation and access to the environmental resources, the middle chalcolithic sites (34 sites) could be divided in to several different groups. This issue is possibly based on the different ways of life sustenance. The earliest evidence in the region goes back to the middle chalcolithic period, but this result should not be known finally as both natural and cultural post-depositional alternations such as erosion, sedimentation and cultivation could play an important role. This article, however, is based on the yielded data collected as the result of archaeological investigations by provincial ICHO and also the first author who undertook a survey to write his Ph.D dissertation.