Preliminary Report on the First Season Excavations at Kalantar 4 Site, Gotvand Dam Basin, Khuzestan

The 90 kilometer lake of the Upper Gotvand Dam would submerge a large number of archeological sites in North of Khuzestan. Thus, a group of archeologists began to identify and record around the site, to know about the area before its being flooded. Kalantar 4 was one of the given sites, by the survey team, which was excavated in a horizontal way in March and April 2011. During this excavation, some remains of architecture and two semi-underground stone tombs belonging to New Elamite were found, which will have effective role in heightening our knowledge about the New Elamite in Susianna highlands. According to the comparative studies of the ceramics, there exist significant similarities among the ceramics found in Kalantar 4, Susa and the sites of Mianab Plain in Shooshtar. Furthermore, studying the architecture of the site based on an ethno-archeological approach, indicated a continuity in the region’s archeological traditions (at least, from the New Elamite period to the present).