Preliminary Study of the Mousterian Stone Industries of Miankouh; Western Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, Iran

Miankouh Area is contractually known as a district of southern part of the Central Zagros in the southwest of Iran. Despite its small area (680 km2), due to its location between highlands there are two distinct micro ecozones with natural resources and an abundance of plant and animal species and has been suitable for the vertical seasonal movements throughout the year in order to access to various resources in the subsistence from the Pleistocene to the present. Our knowledge of its Mousterian cultures is derived from three-season field surveys between 2009 and 2011 years in both Low Altitude (LAZ) and High Altitude Zones (HAZ) with an average altitude of 1510 and 2601 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l). This paper seeks to answer (1) what is the position of Miankouh’s MP cultures among the well-known Mousterian cultures in the Zagros Mountains of Iran? And (2) what is the radius of movement of MP hunter-gatherers of in the landscape of Miankouh through the study of the stone assemblage of both LAZ and HAZ? Totally, 1454 stone artifacts were collected from the Middle Paleolithic Open-air sites of both zones. Preliminary results show that the MP hunter-gatherers of Miankouh exploited both zones with relatively a homogeneous tool kit influenced by the permanent rivers in LAZ and pool resources available in HAZ within the daily radius of movement at a distance of 5 to 20 km, which had often been turned into flakes and various tools using several techniques. They also used the type of tools that are commonly recognizable in the stone industries of other MP cultures of Zagros.