Doc unravels secrets of Iron Age settlement in western Iran

Iranian filmmaker Keyvan Tabatabaei-Samimi has made a documentary on Ganj Dareh, which was once an Iron Age settlement in western Iran.

Known as one of the cradles of agriculture and livestock domestication in West Asia, the documentary titled ‘Ganj Dareh’ takes a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the country, jointly conducted by Iranian, Danish teams of cultural heritage experts.

Ganj Dareh is an archaeological site showing a Neolithic settlement in the Iranian province of Kermanshah, in the central Zagros Mountains.

In 2019, Iranian and Danish archaeologists and cultural heritage experts discovered new traces of Iron Age occupation in a prehistorical cave during a follow-up archaeology season carried out based on an agreement previously signed between the Razi University of Kermanshah and the University of Copenhagen.

Discoveries were made in Mar-Gurgalan (Sarab) cave in the Ganj Dareh site and it was shown that the cave was inhabited about 50,000 years ago and appears to be used both by the Neanderthals for residing and hunting and by the early Homo sapiens.

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