Journal of Archaeological Studies

Abstract Seymarreh landslide is one of the important natural disasters that happened at east south of Seymarreh valley at Darrehshahr town ship in the past. This landslide has attracted attention of several scientists, because of the size and characteristics of its own. Several studies carried out so far in this event timing, however, the time of this event is unknown yet, from the perspective of archaeology. The aim of this paper is timing of Seymarreh landslide, based on archaeological evidence. In this regard, we have studied and examined the archaeological evidences that discovered from three points, including place landslide, the mouth of debris dam and the Seymarreh lake bed. The data of this research were collected by archaeological surveys. As a result, it was found that Seymarreh landslide has happened in the beginning of the Holocene age, simultaneously with the beginning of the Neolithic period and this landslide causing the formation of a recess in the process of habitation in the Seymarreh valley, which have been continued to late of  Neolithic period.

Abstract The goal of this article is to study the Shimashki potteries in the Saymarreh valley. Archaeological surveys conducted in the Saymarreh valley shows that the painted pottery tradition of Godin III has become prevalent in the valley during the Bronze Age and only once, development of this pottery tradition had cracked. This event took place in the phase of Godin III4, which we relate it to the influence of pottery traditions penetrating from Susiana plain to the Saymarreh valley. Contemporary with phase of Godin III4, there have been no potteries of such tradition, but the ceramics by the Shimashki styles appeared in Saymarreh valley. Diagnostic ceramics of Shimashki phase has been gathered in the archaeological surveys of Saymarreh valley at Ghale Zinal and Gharatmalghah. It seems that development of Shimashki period pottery as far as the Saymarreh valley, took place because of Ur III conflicts with polities at northern regions of Susiana plain. Saymarreh valley again joined to the distribution area of painted pottery tradition of Godin III and after the Shimashki period, diagnostic ceramics of Godin III2 phase have been wide-spread in the Saymarreh valley. Development process of painted pottery tradition of Godin III at Saymarreh valley support the view that Shimashki may was located in the highlands, somewhere in the northern parts of Susiana plain, although we cannot prove this in the absence of non textual data.