Survey and Study on Archaeological Sites of central part of Kojour from Prehistory until the rise of Islam

After more than a century of archeological investigations in Iran, some regions have not yet been fully investigated. This is the result of lack of intensive archaeological surveys in these regions. This phenomenon is remarkable in North of Iran (western part of Mazandaran and Gilan). In Northern provinces, in addition to the above mentioned factors, climate situations have raised more questions about the prehistoric cultures, especially before the Iron Age. Mountainous areas in Alborz are suitable places to find the answers for pre-historical cultures in western Mazandaran and Gilan. In the summer of 2011, an archaeological survey conducted by Khazaie Kouhpar in Kojour region in mountainous area of western Mazandaran for research about the archaeological sites (especially prehistoric ones) to study of chronology of this region from oldest times until modern era. Before us several archaeological survey conducted in Kojour but any prehistoric site (before Iron Age, eg. Bronze Age or Chalcolithic Period) reported by them. This happened for some reasons such as high rate of sedimentations and some of reasons are from human errors especially lack of qualified prehistoric experts and used methods for their surveys. Khazaie because of his personal interests focused on Kojour region and his study on reported data by other scientific analysis choice this region to assessment the claims on prehistoric populations of Alborz's northern slopes. This survey because of some problems-especially financial problems- was short and in limited area. Finally after a month intensive archaeological survey in central part of Kojour we find 47 archaeological sites; our assessment for the chronology was according to pottery data and comparison with adjacent regions (Relative Chronology), therefore Kojour settled from prehistory to Islamic periods. Evidences of probably Neolithic period was found from 2 sites, however there is some suspects among us, because that this potteries are from surfaces and all of them are local with now any similar sherdes in other region, therefore our deduction was according to their appearance features; pottery of chalcolithic period was found from 2 sites, this sherds are completely similar to Iranian Central Plateau in Chalcolithic Period. Pottery sherdes found in Kojour are similar to pot sherds of Sialk III and Hissar I and Tape Qabrestan that are located cross the southern slopes of Alborz mountains and show some contacts between this regions; pottery of Bronze Age was found from 2 site, one of them is a large sites with a large number of pottery of Yanik pottery tradition (Early Bronze Age) similar to Tape Kelar and suggesting that western part of Mazandaran province is different of its eastern part at least in early Bronze age however at this sites we see some of Gorgan Pottery tradition; before or survey about 6 Iron age site recorded and we find 2 more site. Finally now we have 8 sites that dated to Iron ages. Evidence of historical pottery in 22 sites was recorded and in 20 sites pottery of Islamic period was observed. The pattern of sites distribution cross the periods shows meaningful changes. All the sites during the each period with regard to population pressure (based on the number of sites and their area) have different distance from water sources and suitable land for irrigation and cultivation with low slope. The results of this survey are now hopeful data about the future investigations in north of Iran especially on prehistoric periods. Recently some new data reported in Kojour that found some pottery of Cheshmeh Ali pottery. The reported site that located in Kojour region is near to our study area and show that our first assessment about our pottery could be true.