A petrographic Study of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Pottery Found at Gourab Tepe

Gourab Tepe is one of Iran’s most important prehistoric sites, located in the city of Malayar in the province of Hamedan. Unlike Godin Tepe, Gourab’s transition from the Late Chalcolithic period to the Early Bronze Age was without any ruptures, and the Bronze Age artifacts found there belong to the Kura-Araxes culture, a culture covering a vast geographical area whose wide spread through the region and the reasons for their expansion have been subjects of great fascination to archeologists. Petrography is a scientific method used in the geological sciences to identify minerals based on their optical properties. The pottery found on Gourab Tepe provides an incredible opportunity to study the transition from the Late Chalcolithic period to the Early Bronze Age, which in itself is an important topic of discussion for archaeology. This article aims to understand the makeup of the minerals present in the pottery found on Gourab Tepe and analyze the transition from the Late Chalcolithic period to the Early Bronze Age to understand the influence of cultural changes on the structure, texture, and makeup of the pottery in the region. Research questions include: Which minerals are present in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age potteries, and what does their presence signify about the geological structure of the region? What effect did the Cultural transition and change have on the structures of potteries, and in the case of these changes, how can we interpret and analyze this phenomenon from an archeological standpoint? The petrographic study analyzing 20 samples—10 of which were from the Late Chalcolithic period and 10 of Kura-Araxes origin—showed that the Gourab Tepe potteries underwent significant structural changes from the Late Chalcolithic period to the Early Bronze Age, and whilst these potteries were produced in the same region, the clay and the pottery-making techniques used had fundamental differences.