The Aceramic Neolithic site of Ganj Dareh (Kermanshah, Iran) is arguably one of the most significant sites for enhancing our understanding of goat domestication and the onset of sedentism. Despite its central importance, it has proven difficult to obtain contextually reliable data from it and integrate the site in regional syntheses because it was never published in full after excavations ceased in 1974. This paper presents the Ganj Dareh archive at Université de Montréal and shows how the documentation and artifacts it comprises still offer a great deal of useful information about the site. In particular, building on the refined stratigraphic understanding proposed by our team, we explore two possible pre-agricultural levels (H-01 and P-01) and explore the spatial distribution of lithics. This allows us to highlight some differences in lithic technological organization in levels H-01 and P-01 suggestive of higher degrees of residential mobility than subsequent phases of occupation at the site. These data help refine our understanding of Ganj Dareh’s occupational history and recenter it as a key site to improve our understanding the Neolithization process in the Middle East.

Burials beneath house floors have long been recognized as a predominant practice in the Early Neolithic of the Near East. Although exhibiting variability from region to region the widespread similarities include clustering of burials within and under burned building. Burial practices in the Central Zagros have not been as closely examined as in the Levant and Anatolia. ‘Who has been buried beneath house floors’ is a fundamental question in Early Neolithic bioarchaeology. Here we explore burial as a vital component of social memory construction in the Early Neolithic of Central Zagros of Iran at Ganj Dareh ca. 10,000 cal B.P.

Clusters of burials were observed in both levels D and C. Successful extraction of aDNA from individuals in one cluster in Level D demonstrates that related individuals were buried within a single archaeological structure. Age-at-death analysis suggests that not all deaths occurred at the same time. Memory within the house of burial locations facilitates burial of additional family members at later dates. We suggest that houses are part of the mnemonic of burial, social memory, and meaning that creates embodied spaces, often accompanied with large scale burning of the structures as an integral part of social memory preservation processes.

We present an overview of the 2017 and 2018 excavations at Ganj Dareh, the site’s stratigraphy, architecture, dating, and material culture. Between 1974 and when our new research began, the site had severely suffered since Smith’s excavation areas had been left open and not sufficiently backfilled and had severely eroded with many profiles slumping and collapsing. Construction of a tarmac road had damaged the southern part of the mound, while ploughing in the surrounding fields was damaging its edges. Finally, several looting pits and tunnels further undermined its stability and integrity. In 2017 we were given the opportunity by the Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research to re-investigate Ganj Dareh as part of the Tracking Cultural and Environmental Change: the late Epipalaeolithic and early Neolithic in the Seimarreh Valley (TCEC) project. Two eight-week excavation seasons took place in the summer of 2017 and 2018 focusing on two areas of the mound (Area A and D) and the area surrounding it. Work on the mound aimed to re-document the stratigraphy of the site and especially to obtain samples for radiometric dating, archaeobotanical analysis, and micromorphology. The work around the mound aimed to establish the presence and extent of sub-surface archaeology around it.

Van Zeist et al.’s detailed analyses of Ganj Dareh provided a wealth of information about the types of plant species exploited by its inhabitants over time, reconstructed the vegetation and evaluated its evolution during the early Holocene.  They wondered however why key cultivars like emmer were not exploited at the site, and what the relationship with other farming communities in the area could have been. To answer these questions, archaeobotanical studies were re-initiated in 2017, benefitting from recent advances including the study of: 1) a wide range of plant macroremains (i.e. seeds and wood charcoal, but also underground storage organs, animal dung and carbonised food remains); 2) the integration of plant microremains such as phytoliths and starch; and 3) the inter-disciplinary analyses of adobe-brick samples; 4) the application of stable isotope analyses. Recovered plant remains were also directly dated to resolve previous chronological uncertainties, their contextual integrity assessed through detailed micromorphological analyses, and additional stable isotope analyses are planned to better understand plant exploitation and cultivation practices at the site. Overall, in this paper we describe the archaeobotanical research plan designed, discuss some preliminary results, and present the main questions that we seek to answer in the upcoming years.