سپهر زارعی

One of the key issues of the Paleolithic archaeology is pathways and expansion routes of Pleistocene human populations into Asia. Recent discovered Paleolithic sites in the southern coasts and hinterlands of Iran, indicate the importance of these zones in the Pleistocene human dispersals. The 1977 joint French-Iranian geological survey carried out by Thibault, Dufaure, Mercier and Kadjar, gave rise to one of the important contributions to Paleolithic knowledge on the northern coastline of the Persian Gulf and the Oman Sea in pre-revolutionary years. During this survey, remarkable lithic assemblages were collected above a sequence of successive pediment surface, but unfortunately, the final report of Paleolithic finds, was never published. The lithic collections kept at the Paleolithic Department of National Museum of Iran. In this paper, the techno-typological characteristics of this collection is presented. The most prominent feature of this collection is the core-flake industry of the Lower Paleolithic; although we are not sure about the Acheulian evidence. The Middle Paleolithic artifacts in the collections are defined by Levallois debitages, discoid/semi-centripetal cores, and scrapers on flakes, especially transverse and oblique scrapers; however, it is not enough to attribute these finds to the Mousterian culture. The low frequencies of the blades and the lack of bladelets make it difficult to draw conclusions about the Upper/Epipaleolithic industries. The small number of blades and the presence of single platform blade/bladelet core, as well as a truncated blade, are possible evidence of Upper/Epipaleolithic presence in these assemblages. These assemblages can be considered as a new insight into technological behavior of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in this poorly known part of the Iranian plateau. They show the high capacity of northern shores and littoral of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea for Pleistocene archaeological studies, and a notable place to test hypotheses such as Out-of-Africa and coastal expansions.

bstract The first steps in the field of archeology in Hormozgan province were taken almost at the same time with other corners of Iran about 150 years ago and, from the very beginning of such endeavors, Hormozgan was a center of attention to related studies. Similar to other places in Iran, these activities began by Western researchers and were followed by Iranian researchers three decades later. Nevertheless, in spite of their historical and cultural richness, these islands remained unknown due to the cross-sectional nature of such studies and the absence of continuous and extensive excavations and investigations there. In this study, the author has tried to explore the shortages of this research area through a review of previous archeological activities in Hormozgan Islands. The obtained results indicate the significance of archeological studies on these islands and the necessity of expanding them more than ever before. The lack of consistency and the absence of a general plan are among the most noteworthy defects of such studies. Unfortunately,a greatamount of thecollected data during therecent decadesare kept only in theform of unpublished reports in the national library of Iran. In many cases,even these preliminary reportsare notavailable and, thus, the results of some of the related studies are not accessible. In spite of all the defects, the findings of the investigations, excavations, and speculations of the young generation of Iranian archeologists during the last two decades show signs of the beginning ofa new stage ofarcheological studies in this region in Iran. The present paper presents a chronological review of the fluctuations in archeological activities on each of Hormozgan islands.