Description : Hajji Firuz Tepe is an archaeological site located in West Azarbaijan province in north-western Iran. The site was excavated between 1958 and 1968 by archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The excavations revealed a Neolithic village that was occupied in the second half of the sixth millennium BC where some of the oldest archaeological evidence of grape-based wine was discovered in the form of organic residue in a pottery jar. Although the excavations focused primarily on the Neolithic occupation layers of the site, evidence for later occupation was also attested. On different parts of the tell, material from the Chalcolithic, Late Bronze Age/Iron Age and Islamic (eleventh century AD) periods was recovered, although the Neolithic occupation seems to have been the most significant occupation. The Neolithic occupation has been divided in 12 phases, named A–L from latest to earliest. Hajji Firuz period Recent studies indicate that the Hajji Firuz period in northwest Iran can be dated c. 6000–5400 cal BC. Then, there was a short gap in chronology, or perhaps a transitional period. The Dalma tradition then emerged; new radiocarbon dates for this tradition are c. 5000–4500 cal BC. Dalma seems like the result of a long local sequence of development from the Hajji Firuz period.
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