QaNaTES Project

Some excavations carried out along the western shore of the Zaribar Lake and surveys promoted by the Hamadan University on the eastern side of this basin, it was possible to ascertain that oldest traces of human occupation in this area date back to the Palaeolithic, while the most recent data concern the Parthian and islamic periods. The QaNaTES project wants to understand the nature and spatial organisation of the archaeological cultures developed in the Marivan valley; in particular, the resurgence of the archaeological activity in Iraqi Kurdistan which was allowed to update the inventory of sites showed how the Zagros territory constituted, in the past, an important communication route between the Mesopotamian plains and the Iranian highlands. In recent years, the results of excavations of Bakr Awa (Heidelberg University) and Tell Gird-i Shamlu (University Ludwig Maximilian of Munich) in the eastern sector of the Shahrizor plain (very close to the border with Iran) give substance to the idea that mountain areas and plains cannot be treated separately: material culture indicates that the development of civilisations was forged on tensions but also on symbiotic contacts between the communities. During the first excavation campaign at Qaleh Naneh in the summer of 2018 three trenches ( A-C) were opened along the slopes ofthe teppeh in order to define the stratigraphic sequence and the chronology of archaeological deposits. The trench on the eastern slope (A) has also made it possible to clarify what was the incidence of the earthwork movements carried out during the construction of the dwellings of the modern village which insists very partially on the south-eastern offshoots of the ancient site (from the village some vases have also been recovered). The second trench allowed to expose the entire stratigraphic sequence on the northern slope. The third (C) in the western sector has given encouraging results as regards as the possibility of highlighting perimeter walls belonging to houses on the entire western front. These first investigations revealed how the main occupation phases concern the Late Ubaid and the final phase of the Chalcolithic (5th-4th millennium BCE), whereas other phases are much less documented or attested only in some areas. The materials have remarkable affinities with the horizon of the northern Ubaid but also local peculiarities. The painted pottery is produced by hand and is characterised by a vast repertoire of geometric patterns and a variety of shapes, including the typical S-shaped cup.