Techno-typological Analysis of Qaleh Kurd Cave Lithic Industries, Aavaj, Qazvin

Qaleh Kurd cave is located in the village of the same name in the vicinity of Hesar Valiasr village, Avaj city, Qazvin province. This cave is located on the route between Zagros and Iranian Central Plateau and along one of the proposed corridors of scattered human groups in the Iranian Plateau (Vahdati Nasab et al., 2013; Dennell, 2020; Shoaee et al., 2021). The first archaeological study in the cave was conducted in 2013, in which a small surface collection of 35 stone tools on the surface was studied and attributed to the Middle Paleolithic era (Soleimani and Ali Beigi, 2018).With the initial investigation of the walls of the pits caused by unauthorized excavations and the presence of cultural materials and animal remains in the cave, the first idea about the possibility of exploring this area was formed. The first examination in Qaleh Kurd cave was conducted in 2017 by some of the authors (HVN & GB). Consequently, the joint Iran-France mission under the supervision of (Vahdati Nasab, Berillon and Hashemi) conducted three archaeological field mission in there (2018, 2019, 2022). It is worth mentioning that here we only present data collected during the first two seasons.Some of the major goals of conducting field missions in Qaleh Kurd are: Investigating the Paleolithic deposits, how the site was formed, comparing lithic industries with other Middle Paleolithic sites of Iran, reconstructing the diet of cave dwellers and trying to obtain human remains. The purpose of this article is to describe the techno-typological aspects of lithic collections recovered from 2018 and 2019 missions and to compare it with the lithic industries of Zagros, and the sites from the Iranian Central Plateau.

The stratigraphy of the trench 1 wall indicates the existence of two distinct sequences, Holocene and Pleistocene, and the identification of 25 stratigraphic units (1 to 9 related to the Holocene and 10 to 25 related to the Pleistocene). The preliminary results of dating samples taken from 30 cm from the beginning of the Pleistocene layer in Trench 1 indicate an age beyond the range of carbon-14 dating (43,500 years ago). Therefore, in the continuation of the research, the ESR method was used for the dating of cultural materials (especially animal teeth). It is worth mentioning that at the time of writing this article, the above-mentioned chronology is being finalized and the preliminary results indicate an age of more than 300.000 BP for the Pleistocene deposits, which will soon be published in separate research.The subject of the present research includes the stone artifacts obtained from the exploration of the first and second seasons. In total, 1257 stone artifacts were obtained from excavations in trenches 1 and 3. In this study, the data obtained from Trench 1, the largest explored trench, is presented. The excavation dimensions in trench 1 were 1.2966 square meters in the first season and 6.195 square meters in the second season.Quantitative characteristics, typological information and technology of tools have been recorded and studied. In a general classification, stone artifacts include tools, debitage, core and core fragments, and debris. According to the stratigraphic information of trench 1, the Pleistocene sequence of Qaleh Kurd is divided into fifteen sedimentological units and five successive archaeological subdivisions. The division of archaeological periods is based on sedimentological studies, changes in the density of stone artifacts and animal remains, and data distribution in depth.The first period or the late period (QK 1) starts from about -50 to -80 cm (Z) of trench 1 and includes sedimentological units 12 and 11. Unit 11 in the eastern wall of Trench 1 consists of gravelly sand silt with pebbles and flat unlayered gravels with charcoal remains. Unit 12 also includes sandy silt with a number of calcite gravels, a matrix with low compression and more compactness. QK 2, or the middle period, starts from the depth of -80 and continues to the depth of -105. This course is in line with unit 13. This unit in the south wall of Trench 1 has a light brown color and debris pieces and quiet dynamics. Unit 13 on the eastern wall of Trench 1 has sand-silt with many pebbles and flat calcite debris. QK 3 starts from the depth of -105 and continues to the depth of -130. This course includes units 14, 15 and 16. Unit 14 in the south wall of Trench 1 consists of clayey silt with gravel and is brown in color. Unit 15 includes organic silt and unit 16 includes silt (clay). In Unit 16, we see gravel, calcite nodules and ancient soil. On the eastern wall of Trench 1, silt with gravel in unit 14 and silt with organic clay in units 15 and 16 are evident.The raw materials of Qaleh Kurd stone artifacts are diverse, including limestone rich in silica, jasper, chert group, volcanic stones such as basalt, a limited number of marbles, radiolarite, clay and quartzite. The most used raw materials in all the phases of Qaleh Kurd are siliceous stones rich in lime, so that in the first period 22.5%, in the second period 20.5% and in the third period 32.1% of artifacts are built on limestone.

In Qaleh Kurd lithic complex, the cores are very limited and it seems that the initial steps of chipping were done outside the area. A variety of raw materials have been used in this collection, and the three aforementioned Qaleh Kurd periods show different abundances in the use of raw materials. In this area, sidescrapers are the most abundant type of tools, after that we are faced with a significant abundance of points and convergent scrapers. The studies conducted on the quantitative characteristics, typological and technological indicators of the stone artifacts showed that in terms of dimensions and quantitative characteristics, the lithics of the first, second and third periods of the cave demonstrate no difference, but the dimensions of the blades are somewhat different from each other. The comparison of the abundance of raw materials, extractions, platform typologies, and Levallois technique between the periods shows the difference of the third period from other periods to some extent. In this period, we see a high accumulation of lithics compared to other periods, this can be due to the intensity of settlement in this period of the site.The results of the comparison of Qaleh Kurd stone artifacts with other Middle Paleolithic sites show that Qaleh Kurd cave in the extent of using the Levallois technique, the abundance of scrapers, especially sidescrapers, the abundance of points, especially the Mousterian points, the faint presence of notch/denticulates and, the intensity of retouching and the abundance of flaked base debitages show a closer proximity to the Zagros sites.