Early Upper Palaeolithic occupation at Gelimgoush cave, Kermanshah; West-Central Zagros mountains of Iran

The timing and dispersal routes of Homo sapiens (H. sapiens) into the Iranian Plateau have always been a matter of debate in the recent years. Current studies on the Upper Palaeolithic period of the Zagros mountains demonstrated the later colonisation of West-Central Zagros by H. sapiens based on techno-typological and radiocarbon dating. The Kermanshah region is one of the main concentrations of Palaeolithic sites in the West-Central Zagros mountains. Despite presenting rich Palaeolithic sequence records, it suffers from the lack of stratified data associated with chronological control. This issue, until now, has prevented us from evaluating and knowing how these archaeological records relate to the patterns of H. sapiens dispersal and colonisation into the West-Central Zagros mountains. Here, we present the first excavated and dated Palaeolithic site in Kermanshah. Eshkaft-e Gelimgoush Cave yielded a classic Upper Palaeolithic assemblage, representing the Lorestan and Kermanshah (LaK) cultural group documented in the West-Central Zagros. Radiocarbon dates, associated with the material culture from this cave, provide the first dated stratified Upper Palaeolithic evidence in Kermanshah. The data from Eshkaft-e Gelimgoush are consistent with the cultural diversity model among the Upper Palaeolithic populations in the Zagros and confirm later colonisation of the West-Central than northern and southern Zagros mountains.