TEHRAN – A team of archaeologists and cultural heritage experts has carved tens of trenches to find fresh evidence enabling them to find the chronology of life in what is called the “oldest” settlement in northwest Iran.

The team led by archaeologist Afrasyab Geravand is carving trenches in and around the Ahranjan hill, which is one of the oldest settlements in northwestern Iran, IRNA reported on Saturday.

Previous excavations suggest that Tepe Ahranjan, which is situated in Salmas county, West Azarbaijan province, is home to a 9,000-year-old human settlement.

The ditches are hoped to give clues about further cultural layers and human settlements in order to help develop a relative and absolute chronology of the hill.

In 2020, Geravand concluded that farming and animal breeding was practiced some 9,000 years ago around the historical Tepe Ahranjan. The discovery was made during a demarcation project aimed to protect the ruined archaeological site.

The archaeologist believes that the hill and its surroundings were one of the first and most important human settlements in the 7th millennium BC in northwestern Iran. “The region has long been a suitable place for settlement since ancient times due to the presence of permanent rivers, springs, animal and plant resources, fertile land, and pastures.”

Experts say the presence of “mother rocks” and obsidian tools in seven different colors, sabers, mortars, and stone utensils are among objects found in the region.

Expers believe that the history of agriculture is the story of humankind’s development and cultivation of processes for producing food, feed, fiber, fuel, and other goods by the systematic raising of plants and animals. Before the development of plant cultivation, human beings were hunters and gatherers. The knowledge and skill of learning to care for the soil and growth of plants advanced the development of human society, allowing clans and tribes to stay in one location generation after generation. Archaeological evidence indicates that such developments occurred 10,000 or more years ago.

It is believed that by 7000 BC, sowing and harvesting reached Mesopotamia, and there, in the super fertile soil just north of the Persian Gulf, Sumerian ingenuity systematized it and scaled it up. By 6000 BC farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile River. About this time, agriculture was developed independently in the Far East, probably in China, with rice rather than wheat as the primary crop.

Because of agriculture, cities, as well as trade relations between different regions and groups of people, developed, further enabling the advancement of human societies and cultures. Agriculture has been an important aspect of economics throughout the centuries before and after the Industrial Revolution. Sustainable development of world food supplies impacts the long-term survival of the species, so care must be taken to ensure that agricultural methods remain in harmony with the environment.

AFM