Qualla: Prehistory of Iran

Prehistory of Iran: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nightryder84, CC BY-SA 4.0. Seven-thousand-year-old jars of wine sit in a display case at the University of Pennsylvania, excavated from the Zagros Mountains of western Iran. They are among the oldest evidence of winemaking on Earth, and they are far from the oldest artifacts found in this region. The Iranian plateau has been a crossroads for human migration since archaic humans first wandered out of Africa, drawn by a landscape of extraordinary geographic variety: mountains, river valleys, deserts, and coastal plains that offered shelter, food, and passage toward southern and eastern Asia. The prehistory of Iran spans from roughly one million years ago to the eighth century BC, when Assyrian records begin to document the peoples of the plateau. In between lies a story of Neanderthals, early farmers, the first domesticated animals, the birth of cities, and a writing system that remains undeciphered to this day.

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Image: Nightryder84 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Prehistory of Iran: First Footprints on the Plateau

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NearEMPTiness, CC BY-SA 4.0. The oldest evidence of human presence in Iran comes from stone artifacts found in gravel deposits along the Kashafrud River Basin in eastern Khorasan, dating to nearly one million years ago. Other early sites are scattered across the country: Mashkid and Ladiz in the southeast, G...

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Image: NearEMPTiness | CC BY-SA 4.0

Prehistory of Iran: Hunters in the Caves

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC0. Between roughly 18,000 and 11,000 BC, during the Epipaleolithic period, groups of hunter-gatherers lived primarily in the caves of the Zagros Mountains. Their diets broadened compared to earlier populations. They hunted smaller vertebrates, gathered pistachios and wild fruit, and...

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Image: CC0

Prehistory of Iran: The Revolution in the Mountains

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nationalmuseumofiran, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Zagros foothills witnessed one of the most consequential transformations in human history. Between 8,000 and 6,800 BC, settlements like Ganj Dareh and Abdul Hosein appeared, communities that lacked pottery but kept flocks of sheep and herds of goats for the first time. This s...

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Image: Nationalmuseumofiran | CC BY-SA 4.0

Prehistory of Iran: Cities, Script, and the Undeciphered

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Amani82, CC0. By the Bronze Age, the Iranian plateau had produced true urban centers. Susa, with a foundation date around 4,395 BC based on radiocarbon dating, may predate the rise of Mesopotamian civilization. It became the capital of Elam, a state that emerged around 4,000 BC and produced ob...

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Image: Amani82 | CC0

Prehistory of Iran: The Peoples Arrive

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Original uploader and creator was Zereshk at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the first millennium BC, waves of migration from the Pontic-Caspian steppe had reshaped the plateau. The Elamites, who had dominated western Iran for millennia, retreated into Khuzestan as Iranian-speaking peoples spread across the region. By the mid-first millennium BC, the M...

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Image: Original uploader and creator was Zereshk at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0