fa مطالعۀ مقدماتی صنایع سنگی موستری میانکوه، غرب چهارمحال‌وبختیاری تخصصی باستان‌شناسی Special Archeology پژوهشي Research <div style="text-align: justify;">میانکوه به‌طور قراردادی به بخشی از منطقۀ زاگرس مرتفع، یا بخش جنوبی زاگرس‌مرکزی، اطلاق می‌شود. با وجود مساحت ناچیز (680 کیلومترمربع) در یک محدودۀ کوهستانی، دو ریزچشم‌انداز متمایز با میانگین ارتفاع 1510 و 2601 متر از سطح دریا دارد که مناسب حرکت‌های فصلی و کوتاه‌مدت جوامع در دوران زمانی متفاوت، جهت دسترسی به منابع گوناگون در اقتصاد معیشتی است. مطالعۀ ویژگی استقرارهای عصر سنگ در این ارتفاعات در مراحل اولیۀ خود قرار دارد. به‌واسطۀ وجود رودخانه‌های دائمی و منابع قلوه‌سنگی رودخانه‌ای، این بخش می‌بایست از محل‌های اصلی رفت‌و‌آمد جوامع متحرک موستری (پلیئستوسن جدید) زاگرس محسوب شود. در پی پاسخ به این پرسش‌ها؛ 1) جایگاه فناوری ساخت مجموعۀ سنگی این منطقه در میان فرهنگ‌های شناخته‌شدۀ زاگرس(؟) و 2) میزان شعاع حرکتی جوامع شکارگر-گردآورندۀ آن در هردو زیست‌بوم (؟)، سه فصل بررسی پیمایشی بین سال‌های 1388 تا 90 ه&zwj;.ش.، انجام شده است که پژوهش حاضر به بخش کوچکی از تحلیل صنایع سنگی آن اختصاص دارد. نتایج اولیه از پراکنش محل‌های روباز (177 عدد) در هر دو زیست‌بوم از یک تا 36 دست‌ساخته‌ حکایت دارد. به‌نظر می‌رسد این دو زیست‌بوم در طول حرکت‌های روزانه یا فصلی جوامع پلیئستوسن به‌خوبی مورداستفاده قرار گرفته‌اند. ترکیب کلی مجموعۀ سنگی آن را تراشه‌های به نسبت کوتاه و کوچک تشکیل می‌دهد که در آن، خراشنده‌ها بر سایر گونه‌ها غلبه دارند. در اینجا تأکید اصلی در فناوری ساخت، بر منابع قلوه‌سنگی خوب گرد‌شدۀ محلی تحت تأثیر رودخانه‌های دائمی و منابع برجای موجود در ارتفاعات منطقه است که اغلب با استفاده از فناوری لوالوا به ابزار و برداشته‌های مختلف تبدیل شده‌اند. شکارگران-گردآورندگان میانکوه فنون ساخت و گونه‌های ابزاری مشابه با دیگر فرهنگ‌های موستری زاگرس را به‌کار برده‌اند، تنها در برخی دست‌ساخته‌های زیست‌بوم مرتفع از انواع سنگ‌های دیگر در کنار نوع غالب چرت/ فلینت و ازنظر گونه‌شناسی، از برداشته‌های بی‌قاعده با پرداخت نامنظم استفاده کرده‌اند. به‌نظر می‌رسد سنگ خام مورداستفاده از فواصل کمتر از 20 کیلومتر در طول چشم‌انداز هر دو زیست‌بوم تأمین شده است.</div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Abstract</strong><br> Miankouh Area is contractually known as a district of southern part of the Central Zagros in the southwest of Iran. Despite its small area (680 km2), due to its location between highlands there are two distinct micro ecozones with natural resources and an abundance of plant and animal species and has been suitable for the vertical seasonal movements throughout the year in order to access to various resources in the subsistence from the Pleistocene to the present. Our knowledge of its Mousterian cultures is derived from three-season field surveys between 2009 and 2011 years in both Low Altitude (LAZ) and High Altitude Zones (HAZ) with an average altitude of 1510 and 2601 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l). This paper seeks to answer (1) what is the position of Miankouh&rsquo;s MP cultures among the well-known Mousterian cultures in the Zagros Mountains of Iran? And (2) what is the radius of movement of MP hunter-gatherers of in the landscape of Miankouh through the study of the stone assemblage of both LAZ and HAZ? Totally, 1454 stone artifacts were collected from the Middle Paleolithic Open-air sites of both zones. Preliminary results show that the MP hunter-gatherers of Miankouh exploited both zones with relatively a homogeneous tool kit influenced by the permanent rivers in LAZ and pool resources available in HAZ within the daily radius of movement at a distance of 5 to 20 km, which had often been turned into flakes and various tools using several techniques. They also used the type of tools that are commonly recognizable in the stone industries of other MP cultures of Zagros.<br> <strong>Keywords: </strong>Zagros, Bakhtiari Highlands, Stone Industries, Mousterian.<br> <br> <strong>Introduction</strong><br> One of the largest bodies of research on montane adaptation comes from the Zagros Mountains of Iran and Iraq. Most of the Palaeolithic archaeological researches of Zagros have focused on, north, south (Azadi, 2017; Dashtizadeh & Hosseini, 2008; Conard et al., 2006; Rosenberg, 1985) as well as the north parts of Central Zagros (see Abdi, 1999; Adams, 1954; Biglari & Abdi, 1999; Coon, 1951; Dibble, 1984; Jaubert et al., 2009; Trinkaus & Biglari, 2006; Young & Smith, 1966; Roustaei et al., 2002; Roustaei et al., 2004). Broadly, it can be declared that there is no comprehensive evidence about conditions of the Palaeolithic sites in the Bakhtiari region in Southern part of the central Zagros.<br> This paper presents an analysis of a group of MP lithic assemblages collected from a set of open-air localities during field surveys conducted in both Lower Altitude (LAZ) and Higher Altitude Zones (HAZ) of Miankouh District with an area of approximately 680 km2 and an average elevation of 1510 and 2601 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l) in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari (ChB) Province, Iran (Khosrowzadeh, 2011, 2010a, 2009).<br> For the aims, these assemblages provide insights into mobility, landscape-use, and lithic technological decision-making in high-altitude environments by the MP hunter-gatherers in the Zagros Mountains and beyond.<br> These data presented in the current paper originates from the area of the Miankouh highlands (Bahraminia et al., 2022) from where MP evidence can help further elucidate the issues identified with the Zagros Mousterian as an explanatory framework for MP seasonal mobility and land-use patterns in the Zagros Mountains (Lindly, 1997; Skinner, 1965).<br> This paper seeks to answer (1) what is the position of Miankouh&rsquo;s MP cultures among the well-known Mousterian cultures in the Zagros Mountains of Iran? And (2) what is the radius of movement of MP hunter-gatherers of in the landscape of Miankouh through the study of the stone assemblage of both LAZ and HAZ?<br> <br> <strong>Materials and Methods</strong><br> To record the surface findings, as soon as the first artefact was found, a radius of 200 meters around the point of this find was evaluated in different directions by a group of five people. By focusing on the MP period, 177 MPO locales in the form of points with XY coordinates incorporating 1454 stone artefact were analyzed. In order to assess the techno-typological aspects of the lithic assemblages in the region we used advanced analytical tools (SPSS tool boxes) at the local landscape level.&nbsp;<br> <br> <strong>Results</strong><br> From the surface of both ecozones a low density of lithic artefacts ranging from 1 to 36 pieces was identified for the MP each identified here as a specific &ldquo;locale&rdquo;. The area under study provided a large number of cultural materials including lithic artefacts from MP UP and EP as well as a considerable amount of potteries from the Neolithic, Chalcolithic as well as the Late Islamic period. For the purpose of this paper, we only examined stone assemblage of the MP period.&nbsp;<br> A total of 1454 lithic artefacts (whole and fragmented) were collected during the Miankouh survey, with 874 pieces from 113 MPO locales coming from LAZ, and 580 pieces from 63 MPO locales from HAZ. We identified four main groups including core, tool, unretouched flake, and debris.<br> In terms of lithic technology, preferential and recurrent Levallois methods are clearly used in the production of flakes. Recurrent methods of unipolar, bipolar, and centripetal were used to knap the flakes. Moreover, the dorsal scar patterns among the cores, tools and unretouched flakes indicate non-Levallois semi-pyramidal and discoidal methods are other debitage techniques in the MP stone industry of Miankouh.<br> For 970 artefacts which were categorized as tool, scrapers and blades represent highest frequency of tool types in assemblage which were followed by retouched flakes, points, notch/denticulates, borer/burins, and hand axes. In process of tool-making have generally been used the Plain/flat and faceted platforms more than other types. Points of both LAZ and HAZ are the end products in this group because about 82 % of them do not have any cortex on their dorsal face. Also, 50.88 % of total unretouched whole flakes have cortex on the dorsal face. Geneste has already classified such samples in the early stages of the reduction system in the tool production cycle (Geneste, 1985).&nbsp;<br> <br> <strong>Conclusion</strong><br> The use of Levallois technique was initially reported not to be present in the Mousterian Zagros assemblages (Skinner, 1965). Its widespread use within Zagros Middle Palaeolithic assemblages was however eventually confirmed by Dibble (1984) (Bahraminia et al., 2022) (and papers in Olszewski and Dibble, 1993). That the utilization of Levallois technique in the region cannot however be expected to be universal has recently been established through excavations at Qaleh Bozi close to the Miankouh field survey area, where a relative absence of Levallois technique was reported (Biglari et al., 2009).<br> Unfortunately, we do not have reliable metric core data and other lithic artefacts from other MP sites of the Zagros in order to support our results. In order to better understand the effects of elevation on size and weight as well as its effect on the quality and quantity of MP toolkits, we need to measure metric values of lithic assemblages from other sites/locales within the Zagros Mountains at different elevations from a &lsquo;landscape-oriented&rsquo; or &lsquo;siteless&rsquo; approach.<br> The overall composition of the Miankouh lithic assemblage from a techno-typological point of view includes relatively short flakes. Retouched pieces on flake are other features of this collection. A glance at all cores from Miankouh reveal that in LAZ usually larger stone cobbles have been used as cores in comparison with HAZ. The mean weight of those from LAZ is 56.66 grams while in HAZ it is 41.98. In the case of core reduction strategies, the high frequency of cortical flakes, unretouched flakes, irregular retouched flakes, and typical tools suggest that the knapping processes were accomplished at some of localities of LAZ. It seems that the production of tools on cortical flakes (for example notch/denticulates) has been a common tool making tradition in the study area. The presence of short flakes in the Miankouh lithic assemblage may reflect the fact that the use of short flakes had been a common tradition at the MP sites in high-altitude environments. It can be raised that some Mousterian debitage strategies for the production of flakes and tools were commonly presented in Miankouh where stone raw material in the form of river pebbles and chert nodules of limestone outcrops were available in this mountainous region.<br> <div style="text-align: justify;"></div></div> ارتفاعات‌بختیاری, میانکوه, صنایع‌سنگی, موستری. Zagros, Bakhtiari Highlands, Stone Industries, Mousterian. 7 33 http://journal.richt.ir/mbp/browse.php?a_code=A-10-352-1&slc_lang=fa&sid=1 Mohsen Bahraminia محسن بهرامی‌نیا mhs.bahraminia@gmail.com Yes Ph.D. in Archaeology, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Literature and Human Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. دکترای باستا‌ن‌شناسی، گروه باستا‌ن‌شناسی، دانشکدۀ ادبیات و علوم انسانی، دانشگاه تهران، تهران، ایران. Kamal Aldin Niknami کمال‌الدین نیکنامی kniknami@ut.ac.ir No Professor, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Literature and Human Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran استاد گروه باستا‌ن‌شناسی، دانشکدۀ ادبیات و علوم انسانی، دانشگاه تهران، تهران، ایران Alireza Khosrowzadeh علیرضا خسروزاده akhosrowzadeh@yahoo.com No Associate Professor, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Literature and Human Science, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran. دانشیار گروه باستان‌شناسی، دانشکدۀ ادبیات و علوم انسانی، دانشگاه شهرکرد، شهرکرد، ایران.