Introducing the Petroglyphs Dava darasi in Horand County, East Azerbaijan

Rock art can be regarded as one of the oldest art forms of human societies throughout history. Therefore, the study and analysis of the art of petroglyphs plays a special role in understanding social relationships, beliefs, culture and other aspects of human life. These motifs are of great importance regarding archeological studies of anthropology; anthropology and art history was of great importance, and so far many petroglyphs have been discovered and identified in different parts of the world. The northwestern region of Iran is also one of the prone areas of rock art. During the archaeological excavations on the periphery of the permanent Quru River in the summer of 2012, several collections of petroglyphs were identified. These petroglyphs have a variety of motifs, including human, animal, and symbolic motifs, often scattered on petroglyphs and rarely scratched on the surface of individual rocks. This study investigates and overviews the petroglyphs of the Dava darasi area of Horand County and seeks to answer the following questions: What was the living structure of communities of this area based on petroglyph motifs? And how many categories can the paintings created on the rocks be classified into? The present study has been done by using descriptive-analytical method and data gathered through field and library studies. The results show that these motifs contain human, animal, symbolic and instrumental motifs, and have qualitative and quantitative similarities with the motifs of different regions of Iran. This can be due to the cultural connections and biological and social similarities of communities in these areas. In addition, according to the created petroglyphs, these communities had a livelihood structure based on animal husbandry (nomadism) which was the dominant pattern of pre-historic communities of this area.