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A Preliminary Analysis of Prehistoric Pottery from Carleton Coon's Excavations of Hotu and Belt Caves in Northern Iran: Implications for Future Research into the Emergence of Village Life in Western Central Asia

January 2012
International Journal of the Humanities 19(3):56-94

Authors:

Michael William Gregg

Meneset Research

Christopher P. Thornton

University of Pennsylvania

This paper presents reconstructed excavation plans and stratigraphic profiles of the 1949 and 1951 excavations of Hotu and Belt Caves (Ghar-e Hotu and Ghar-e Kamarband) in northern Iran based on examination of Carleton Coon's unpublished field notes and drawings in the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Harvard University and Smithsonian Institution archives. Recalculated and calibrated radiocarbon dates of early Mesolithic to post-Achaemenid period occupations of these caves are also presented in the context of cultural horizons or stratigraphic units from which assays were supposedly obtained. However, inconsistencies in the methods used in the recovery and recording of discoveries at both Hotu and Belt Caves (combined with the wide range of statistical variability associated with early 'conventional' radiocarbon dating techniques) prevent a high-resolution occupational sequence from being developed, and inferences on trajectories of cultural influence from being conclusively drawn. These uncertainties underline the pressing need for further fieldwork aimed at uncovering the natural and cultural processes giving rise to the emergence of village life in western Central Asia following the last Ice Age.

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Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3): (56-94)

A Preliminary Analysis of Prehistoric Pottery from

Carleton Coon’s Excavations of Hotu and Belt Caves in

Northern Iran: Implications for Future Research into the

Emergence of Village Life in Western Central Asia

Michael W. Gregg1,

Christopher P. Thornton2

Received: 2011/10/25 Accepted: 2011/12/26

Abstract

This paper presents reconstructed excavation plans and stratigraphic profiles of the 1949

and 1951 excavations of Hotu and Belt Caves (Ghar-e Hotu and Ghar-e Kamarband) in

northern Iran based on examination of Carleton Coon’s unpublished field notes and

drawings in the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Harvard University and Smithsonian

Institution archives. Recalculated and calibrated radiocarbon dates of early Mesolithic to

post-Achaemenid period occupations of these caves are also presented in the context of

cultural horizons or stratigraphic units from which assays were supposedly obtained.

However, inconsistencies in the methods used in the recovery and recording of discoveries at

both Hotu and Belt Caves (combined with the wide range of statistical variability associated

with early ‘conventional’ radiocarbon dating techniques) prevent a high-resolution

occupational sequence from being developed, and inferences on trajectories of cultural

influence from being conclusively drawn. These uncertainties underline the pressing need for

further fieldwork aimed at uncovering the natural and cultural processes giving rise to the

emergence of village life in western Central Asia following the last Ice Age.

Keywords: Belt Cave, Hotu Cave, Late Pleistocene, Early Holocene, Mesolithic, Neolithic,

Caspian Soft Wares, Cheshmeh Ali Wares, Radiocarbon Dating.

1. Research Fellow in Archaeological Science, School of Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University Consulting

Scholar, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.

2 . Program Officer, Committee for Research and Exploration, National Geographic Society Consulting Scholar, Museum of

Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.

M. W. Gregg, C. P. Thornton Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

Introduction

Researchers have long been interested in

mapping the prehistoric human settlement and

cultural histories of the narrow geographic

corridor linking the Middle East with western

Central Asia. Pumpelly (1905), Arne (1935),

Okladnikov (1949), Coon (1951, 1952a),

Movius (1953), Masson (1957), Markov (1966)

and McBurney (1964,1968) have all provided

us with important and fascinating glimpses on

the ways of life at seasonal hunting and fishing

encampments and early food-producing

communities between the Caspian Sea and the

Alborz and Kopet Dagh mountains in northern

Iran and southern Turkmenistan. However, due

to political instabilities associated with the

break-up of the Soviet Union and the Islamic

Revolution in Iran, very little research was

undertaken on the processes giving rise to the

domestication of plants and animals, the

adoption of new technologies and the

emergence of village life in this region of the

world following the last Ice Age (Harris et al.,

1993, 1996; Hiebert and Kurbansakhatov, 2003;

Gregg, 2010c; Vahdati Nasab et al., 2011).

Consequently, evolutionary developments on

the fertile grasslands and in highland forests

adjacent to the Caspian Sea during the late

Pleistocene and early Holocene have rarely

been taken into account in longstanding debates

concerning core and peripheral areas of

independent economic innovation (Pumpelly,

1905; Vavilov, 1926,; Childe, 1928; Coon,

1951b; Danilenko, 1969; Masson and Sarianidi,

1972; Hole, 1984; Bar-Yosef and Valla, 1989;

Bar-Yosef and Khazanov, 1992; Aurenche et

al., 2001; Watkins, 2008; Zeder, 2011).

Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov (1926)

included western Central Asia as one of five

regions of the world where agriculture first

developed, but there is currently no compelling

evidence for the independent domestication of

plants or animals in northern Iran or

southwestern Turkmenistan at the onset of the

Holocene.

Archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological

evidence from the well-documented Pottery

Neolithic settlement at Djeitun (Masson, 1957;

Harris et al. 1993, 1996; Harris and Gosden,

1993; Charles and Bogaard 1996, 2005; Charles

and Hillman, 1992; Harris, 2010) has shown

that the wild progenitors of wheat and sheep are

not found east of the Caspian Sea, and that a

sedentary way of life based on the herding of

sheep and goats and cultivation of cereal grains

was likely introduced into this region from

Southwest Asia circa 6000 cal. BC (Harrris,

2010). However, it is becoming increasingly

clear that the transition from hunting and

gathering to food production in western Eurasia

is not a uniform phenomenon. Statistical

analyses of radiocarbon dates from the earliest

pottery-bearing horizons of hunting and fishing

settlements in eastern Europe, western Russia,

A Preliminary Analysis of ... Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

Ukraine and the Caucasus have shown that

foraging societies varied not only in when they

adopted agricultural crops and domesticated

livestock, but also in the range of species

incorporated into their subsistence base; the

proportion of domesticated vs. wild food

resources; and the tempo of adoption of ceramic

technologies facilitating replacement of natural

resources with domesticated ones. There is also

a growing body of evidence for the use of

pottery at many of these pre-agricultural

settlements as early as 7000 cal. BC

(Dolukhanov, 1986, 1987, 1989; Dolukhanov

and Shukurov, 2004; Dolukhanov et al., 2005,

2007, 2009a; Anthony, 2007; Zvelebil and

Jordan, 2010; Vasilieva, 2011).

In light of many unanswered questions

regarding interactions between Epipalaeolithic

hunters and fishers of the Caspian littoral plain

and Neolithic farmers and herders of the Iranian

plateau (McBurney, 1968; Masson and

Sarianidi, 1972; Kohl 1984; Hiebert and Dyson,

2002) and a hypothesized trajectory for the

invention and/or adoption of pottery in western

Eurasia other than that associated with the

diffusion of agropastoralism from the Middle

East (Dolukhanov and Shukurov, 2004;

Dolukhanov et al., 2005, 2009a; Zvelebil and

Jordan, 2010), we have examined archival and

archaeological materials from Hotu and Belt

Caves. These rockshelters, situated on the late

Pleistocene shoreline of the Caspian Sea in the

foothills of the Alborz Mountain near the

modern town of Behshar in Mazandaran

province, were hurriedly excavated by

University of Pennsylvania anthropologist

Carleton Coon over the course of nine weeks in

the fall of 1949 and the spring of 1951.

A preliminary report on the 1949

excavations at Belt Cave (1951) can be found in

Coon’s monograph entitled Cave Explorations

in Iran 1949 that also contained plans, section

drawings and artifact descriptions from his

excavations at Bisitun, Tamtana and Khunik

caves. The focus of this volume is in presenting

an overview of the magnitude and scope of the

University of Pennsylvania Museum expedition

rather than providing a detailed explanation of

the archaeological horizons from which a

veritable wealth of materials was recovered.

Coon did not produce a report on his

subsequent excavations at Belt Cave in the

spring of 1951, but includes a brief paragraph

on his findings from the site in a preliminary

report on his concurrent excavations at nearby

Hotu Cave published in the Proceedings of the

American Philosophical Society (1952a). Short

papers on the recovery of artifacts (including a

fired-clay “goddess” figurine) and human

skeleton remains from late Pleistocene gravels

at Hotu Cave were also published in the same

issue of this journal by Coon’s collaborators

Louis Dupree (1952) and Lawrence Angel

(1952) respectively. Coon subsequently

M. W. Gregg, C. P. Thornton Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

produced chapters on his findings at Hotu and

Belt Caves in The Seven Caves. However,

neither this “tale of high adventure” (1957:

cover, inside flap) nor either of the preliminary

reports (1951, 1952a) include detailed analysis

of the thousands upon thousands of pottery

fragments recovered from these sites.

Hotu and Belt Caves provide ample

evidence of human occupation at various times

from the early Mesolithic to post-Achaemenid

periods (Libby, 1950; Coon, 1951, 1952a,

1957; Dupree, 1952; Angel, 1951; Ralph,

1955). However, the hurried methods used in

excavation, and the haphazard manner in which

finds were collected and stratigraphy was

recorded, preclude the possibility of developing

a high-resolution chronology for the transition

from foraging to food production. Such

problems also restrict our ability to reach

conclusions about whether pottery was invented

near Hotu and Belt Caves or adopted from other

regions in western Eurasia. Nevertheless,

reconstruction of the sequence of deposition as

recorded in Coon’s field notes and unpublished

drawings presented below does suggest in situ

development of ceramic technology at Hotu and

Belt Caves at the end of the Pleistocene. A

Mesolithic “interest in clay” (Coon, 1951:75)

and the presence of a later ‘hybrid’ of pottery

forms utilizing a mixture of Caspian ‘soft

ware’ and Cheshmeh Ali manufacturing

techniques at Hotu Cave, allows tentative

hypotheses to be drawn concerning core and

peripheral areas of independent economic

innovation within the region. This work also

draws attention to the compelling need for

additional research into the role of ceramic

technologies as a catalyst for a sedentary way

of life in western Central Asia.

Panoramic photographs of the modern

exterior and setting of Hotu and Belt Caves by

Meysam Akbarzadeh are available online at:

http://www.360cities.net/image/huto-cave-

northern-iran#0.00,0.00,70.0

http://www.360cities.net/image/kamarband-

cave#-58.03,-7.76,70.0

1949 and 1951 Excavations at Belt Cave

Carleton Coon led a team of approximately 25

Iranian workmen in excavating two adjacent

trenches at Belt Cave (Fig. 1) over a ten-day

period from October 13-20, 1949. Trench A

was excavated to a depth of approximately 6

meters and the stratigraphic section profile for

this unit was published in Cave Explorations in

Iran 1949 (Fig. 2). Trenches A and B were

initially designated as Trenches 1 and 2 in this

monograph, but renamed in field notes from

Coon’s 1951 excavations beneath the ‘dune’ at

the mouth of Belt Cave (Fig. 1). Although the

stratigraphy of Trench 2 (or B) is shown on the

AD profile in Figure 1, artifact provenience was

only recorded for materials recovered from

Trench 1 (or A). Our examination of Coon’s

A Preliminary Analysis of ... Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

field notes and drawings in the University of

Pennsylvania Museum archives indicate that

Trench 2 (or B) was excavated to a depth of

approximately 1 meter in October 1949, and to

a depth of approximately 6 meters along with a

new unit (Trench C) when fieldwork resumed

in the spring of 1951 (Fig. 3). Coon’s published

drawing (Fig. 2) shows that Trench 1 (or A)

was excavated in ‘spits’ of approximately 10

centimeters, while his field notes indicate that

the ‘spits’ in Trench 2 (or B) and Trench C

ranged between 30 - 100cm.

Coon did not publish stratigraphic section

profiles for either Trench 2 (or B) or Trench C.

However, a partial profile of the north face of

Trench C from the 1951 excavations,

incorporating portions of Trench 2 (or B) from

the 1949 excavations (Figure 4), was found

among Carleton Coon’s personal papers at the

National Anthropological Archives at the

Smithsonian Institution. No grid coordinates

were recorded on this drawing, but a notation

on its top right-hand corner places this position

directly beneath the entrance to the cave. A

handwritten note on the left-hand edge of the

drawing contains the following instructions:

“Ghar-i-kammerband [Belt Cave] North face

section Correct 1949 sections from this one.”

Section profiles do not appear to have been

drawn for the 1st and 2nd deep trenches in

Trench C.

In Cave Explorations in Iran 1949, Coon

reports three distinct cultural horizons at Belt

cave: Early and Late Mesolithic and Neolithic,

but there remains a great deal of ambiguity as to

whether there is actually an aceramic

‘Neolithic’ occupation. Neolithic levels 1-10 in

Trench A were removed within the first two

days of excavation (Coon, 1957:150), and

aceramic and pottery Neolithic horizons are not

differentiated from one another in Coon’s

published section profiles (Fig. 2). In

recounting his exploits on the Caspian shore,

Coon (1957:150) notes that “[i]n two days we

had found in Trench A an early Neolithic

industry that had pottery, following, without

soil change or interruption, a still earlier

Neolithic that lacked it. Whereas, the ceramic

Neolithic people had reaped grain and herded

cows and pigs as well as sheep and goats, the

pre-ceramic Neolithic peoples, who can have

been their immediate ancestors, had been

simple herdsmen, pasturing sheep and goats.”

Coon had previously suggested that Neolithic

begins in Level 10 but that pottery is not

“indubitably present” until level 7 (Coon,

1951:41). However, in our examination of his

field notes from the 1949 excavations, Coon

records recovery of ‘soft ware’ pottery from

levels 6-11, apparently including two Upper

Mesolithic levels (Fig. 2). Five “mysterious”

unbaked clay conical objects were also found in

levels 11 and 12. For Coon (1951:75) what

these objects were used for was “anyone’s

M. W. Gregg, C. P. Thornton Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

guess”, but they also demonstrated “a

Mesolithic interest in clay”.

To Coon, the faunal remains of ovicaprids in

Mesolithic levels were morphologically

indistinguishable from domesticated species

found in Neolithic levels at Belt Cave, but the

ratio of young animals in the faunal assemblage

led him to suspect that “goat herding began in

the Mesolithic” (Coon, 1951:50). In a

comparison of subsistence practices at Belt

Cave and the nearby aceramic Epipalaeolithic

cave at Ali Tappeh, Charles McBurney notes

with the simultaneous arrival of large quantities

of pottery and the first morphological evidence

of domesticated goats, “the entire faunal and

industrial spectra change as if it were over

night” (McBurney, 1968:408). The ratio of

ovicaprid remains jumps from 12 to 84%, while

gazelle drops from 62 to 8%, and aurochs from

22 to 0%. Mesolithic backed-blades and

geometrics disappear with the advent of pottery,

but only one sickle blade is recorded in levels

8-10 whereas twenty were recovered from

levels 1-7. Conversely, stone pestles were

recovered from levels 9, 16, 22, 25 and stone

mortars with traces of red ocher from levels 12,

13. Only one saddle quern was found at Belt

Cave, in level 2, one of the topmost and

presumably latest Neolithic levels.

Coon returned to Iran in the spring of 1951

to continue work at Belt Cave and undertake

new excavations at nearby Hotu Cave. Trenches

B and C at Belt (Figs. 1,3) were excavated to a

depth of 6 meters over a two-week period

between February 28 and March 14, 1951. A

short paragraph in Coon’s preliminary report on

his 1951 excavations at Hotu Cave states that:

“Belt Cave contained four cultural horizons

reading from top to bottom: (1) a mixed deposit

containing Neolithic remains along with Iron

Age, Islamic and Modern materials; (2) a true

Neolithic horizon divided into an upper (2a),

which contained pottery and domesticated

animals, and a lower (2b), which contained

domestic sheep and goats but no pottery; (3) a

Mesolithic culture in which the principal food

was supplied by a grassland or desert animal,

Gazella subgutturosa jacovlew; still found on

the Turkoman plain; (4) an earlier Mesolithic

during which time the cave was a flint factory,

and the workmen lunched off a small species of

Caspian seal and many water birds” (Coon,

1952: 231). Coon’s field notes indicate that the

‘true Neolithic horizon’ mentioned above is

30cm in depth: the upper pottery bearing levels

being 90 -105 cm below the presumed surface

of the cave floor (Fig. 3) with pre-ceramic

levels below that at depths of 105 - 120 cm.

However, Elizabeth Ralph’s (1955) report on

radiocarbon dating of the 1951 excavations

suggests that the pre-ceramic Neolithic levels at

Belt Cave are deeper still, lying between 150 -

160 mm in depth.

Coon initially reported recovering

A Preliminary Analysis of ... Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

fragmentary skeletal remains of two Mesolithic

individuals from Belt Cave in the Bulletin of the

Philadelphia Anthropological Society (Coon,

1950:3). This number was later revised to

include three Mesolithic individuals recovered

from a burial in levels 19 - 21 of Trench 1 (or

A) and a Neolithic individual from unspecified

levels in Trench 2 (or B) (Coon 1951:79). In a

lecture delivered to a special meeting of the

Prehistoric Society in London on his recent

Stone Age discoveries in Iran, Coon noted that

the Mesolithic individuals included a

“decapitated” male found with his head

between his legs, a twelve year old girl with

“Neanderthal features”, an individual of heavy

build, and a great deal of red ochre associated

with all three burials (Cornwall, 1951:164).

Nine of 125 pages in Cave Explorations in Iran

1949 are devoted to the presentation of

photographs and cranial measurements of the

skull of the young girl; however, the number of

Mesolithic individuals remains unclear in

Coon’s report (1953:326) in Catalogue des

Hommes Fossiles V. No mention of Neolithic

individuals is found in this volume, but our

examination of Coon’s field notes from his

1951 excavations indicate that skeletal remains

of as many as six individuals were recovered

from Neolithic occupations at Belt Cave. Four

Neolithic individuals are reported as having

been recovered from Belt Cave in Coon’s

(1952:231) preliminary report on excavations at

Hotu Cave. In Figure 3, the locations of where

human skeletal remains were recovered has

been reconstructed from Coon’s typed

laboratory notes and contextual information

contained in Ralph’s (1955) publication of

radiocarbon dates. Additional information on

Coon’s field notes from Belt cave can be found

at: http://michaelwgregg.com/Hotu:Belt Guide

(Gregg 2010c).pdf

1951 Excavations at Hotu Cave

Excavations were undertaken at Hotu Caver

over a five week period from March 14 - April

21, 1951. While work was being completed at

Belt Cave under the supervision of graduate

student Louis Dupree, Coon led a small team of

workmen in clearing the narrow mouth of the

much larger cavern that had been completely

buried fifteen years earlier by limestone mining

activities (Coon, 1952). Excavation began in

Trench A at back of Hotu Cave (Fig. 5), with a

successive series of steps progressively dug into

the area designated as Trench B to allow easy

access for workmen removing materials. This

excavation approach may have caused materials

from later levels of Trench B to have been

recovered with earlier materials from Trench A.

The excavation plan and profiles in Figures

5, 6 and 8 below are from Coon’s 1952

preliminary report on Hotu Cave, published in

the Proceedings of the American Philosophical

Society. Two areas were identified in this report

M. W. Gregg, C. P. Thornton Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

as being excavated at a later time; however, no

mention is made of any subsequent excavation

in Coon’s 1951 field notes, nor were

coordinates assigned. Trenches A, B and C

were excavated to the depth of a late

Pleistocene gravel that progressively slopes

from the rear to the mouth of the cave, and

large limestone boulders were encountered at a

depth of approximately 5.5 meters towards the

back of the cave in Trench A. No section

profiles appear to have been drawn for

Trenches B or C, but Coon’s field notes

indicate that the depth of the interface with this

gravel layer is 6.65 m in trench A; 7.15 m in

trench C; and 8.0 m in trench B. Specific depths

of excavated units HA1 - HA45 have been

reconstructed in Figure 7 from an unpublished

drawing found among Carleton Coon’s field,

laboratory and teaching notes in the archives of

the University of Pennsylvania Museum. This

drawing indicates that excavations were

undertaken in the same manner as at Belt,

where Trench A was excavated in ‘spits’ of

approximately 10 centimeter in depth, whereas

the ‘spits’ in Trench B ranged between 30-

100cm.

A smaller trench (D) was subsequently

excavated in the underlying Pleistocene layers

of trench B to a depth of 5 meters. Combined

depth of Trenches B and D is approximately 12

meters. The plan and stratigraphic profile of

Mesolithic horizons in Trench D (including the

locations from which human skeletal remains

were recovered) can be found in Figure 8.

Artifacts from Trench A were given

designations that included the excavation unit

and the number of the spit from which they had

been recovered (e.g., HA 10), whereas artifacts

from Trenches B, C and D received

designations with excavation unit and the depth

from which they had been recovered (e.g., HB

2.50-2.80). A summary of radiocarbon dates

associated with specific depths, excavation

units and archaeological horizons at Hotu Cave

found can be found in Table 3.

Coon’s excavations at Hotu Cave received

worldwide attention within weeks of

completion with publication of a four-page

photo essay by Bob Stevens in Life magazine

on “Discovery of the Earliest Humans”

(Stevens, 1951:113). The headlines and text

accompanying the dramatic photos claimed that

sand and gravel in the basal levels of the cave

had yielded three 75,000 year old human

skeletons, and that these “new-found Iranians

may emerge as the earliest known direct

ancestors of the human race” (Stevens, 1951:

113). There is no attribution for the text, but

charts and drawings explaining the possible

evolutionary relationship of the Hotu Cave to

Piltdown Man are based on materials supplied

by the University of Pennsylvania Museum.

Dupree was convinced that the sand and gravel

covering the skeletal remains had been

A Preliminary Analysis of ... Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

deposited before “the last glacial advance

75,000 to 100,000 years ago”, whereas Coon

was “as sure as Dupree that Hotu Man lived

before the last glacier retreated” (Stevens,

1951:116). The April 9, 1951, entry in Coon’s

field notes records that Dupree had recovered a

“core hand-axe — Tayacian type ? ” from the

gravels in Trench D between 7.5 - 8.0 meters in

depth. In this entry Coon notes that there was

“definitely Lower Palaeolithic in [the] cave!! ”,

and jokingly remarks: “What next [?] said

several tadpoles to each other, Mousterian of

Acheulean tradition? ” (Gregg, 2010: 25).

In their subsequent preliminary reports Coon

(1952) and Dupree (1952) are more

circumspect in their claims of early dates for

skeletal remains and artifacts recovered from

the Pleistocene gravels at Hotu Cave. Coon is

less confident than when the skeletal remains

were initially discovered, because the

archaeological, botanical, faunal and geological

evidence yielded “no clear pattern of agreement

between them” (Coon, 1952: 235). He surmises

that the only conclusion that can be reliably

drawn is that the earliest human occupation of

the cave “took place in a wet period” (Coon,

1952:246). Dupree’s report on artifacts from the

Pleistocene gravels does not include mention of

a handaxe (Taycian or otherwise), but the

absence of microliths similar to those from

Mesolithic levels at Belt leads him to conjecture

that the flakes and pebble tools dominating the

lithic assemblage in Trench D belong to a

“localized Upper Palaeolithic (?)” industry

(Dupree, 1952:257). Dupree draws parallels

between a fragmentary fired-clay “Goddess

Figurine” with stone and bone objects

recovered from Upper Palaeolithic sites in

Russia and questions whether a mat-impressed

“fire-burned lump of clay” could be used as

evidence of basketry (Dupree, 1952:253; photo

in Coon, 1952:247). Coon later suggests the

lithic industry associated with the skeletal

remains at Hotu Cave could be related to “late

Gravettian or early Mesolithic of Iran” (Coon,

1953:327). However, charcoal from the same

horizon as the skeletal remains (Figure 8: gravel

4) was subsequently dated to 9190 ± 590 BP

(Ralph 1955; Table 3 below), and we now

know that the late Khvalynian transgression of

the Caspian Sea at the end of the Pleistocene is

the most likely source of sand and gravel

(Uerpmann and Frey, 1981; Chepalyga, 2007;

Dolukhanov et al., 2009b; Harris, 2010).

Although Coon reports that no pre-ceramic

Neolithic levels were found at Hotu Cave as

had been at Belt, Charles McBurney has argued

that three sickle blades recovered from

Pleistocene gravel 3 (Figure 8) are evidence of

an “incipient Neolithic economy” during the

late Epipalaeolithic in northeastern Iran

(McBurney, 1968:409). McBurney also notes

that the concentration of hunters on sheep/goat

to the virtual exclusion of gazelle at this time is

M. W. Gregg, C. P. Thornton Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

an “interesting prelude to domestication

associated with ‘soft ware’ [pottery]”

(McBurney, 1968:409). Although Coon’s

preliminary report states that ‘soft wares’ were

found in levels 32 through 45 in Trench A at

Hotu Cave, our examination of his field notes

record that ‘soft wares’ were present from

levels 31 to 47 in both Trenches A and B

(Gregg 2010: 6). We have also located soft

ware pottery fragments labeled HA 51 in the

University of Pennsylvania Museum

collections. No designation of spits 46 through

51 are to be found in Coon’s drawing of

excavation units (Figure 7), but these levels are

presumably below 7.15 meters in depth in the

late Pleistocene gravels of Trench D (Fig. 8).

Additional information on Coon’s field notes

from Hotu Cave can be found at:

http://michaelwgregg.com/Hotu:Belt Guide

(Gregg 2010c).pdf

Radiocarbon Dates from 1949 and 1951

Excavations at Hotu, Belt Caves

Radiocarbon analysis was initially undertaken

by Willard Libby of the University Chicago on

eight charred bone samples recovered from

Mesolithic and Neolithic occupations of Belt

Cave during excavations in 1949 (Libby,

1951:72; Libby, 1955:83-84). Elizabeth Ralph

(1955:150-151) of the University of

Pennsylvania Museum subsequently conducted

radiocarbon assays of 36 charcoal samples from

Coon’s 1951 excavations, including 10 from

Belt Cave and 26 from Hotu Cave. A wide

range of statistical variability is quite common

with older ‘conventional’ radiocarbon dates,

and many assays from Hotu and Belt Caves

(Tables 1-3) are not specific enough to provide

a reliable estimate of the actual age of the

materials that we have examined. This

variability appears to have been compounded

by inconsistencies in the collection of materials

during excavation, and Libby’s calculation of

the half-life of 14 C as 5568 ± 30 years. The

published dates provided by Libby and Ralph

for Coon’s excavations at Hotu and Belt Caves

have been recalculated using the more accurate

Cambridge half-life for 14 C of 5730 ± 40 years

and subsequently calibrated using OxCal 4.0

(68% confidence interval). Ralph’s dates for

Trench C at Belt Cave (Table 3) have the

highest degree of internal consistency.

Inconsistencies in dating of the stratigraphic

sequence from Coon’s excavations at Hotu and

Belt caves may have resulted from a

combination of factors: bioturbation,

disturbance by workmen during excavation,

possible contamination from modern carbon

sources, or ‘old wood effect’ with tree ring

formation possibly having occurred hundreds of

years before inclusion in occupation levels.

In Cave Exploration in Iran 1949, Coon

reports that radiocarbon samples were sent to

Libby from levels 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 at Belt

A Preliminary Analysis of ... Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

Cave. Radiocarbon dates for levels 6, 7, 8, 9, 11

were not reported by Libby. Assays of samples

C-492 and C-547 appear to have been

combined to give a mean date of 8004 ± 415

BP for lower Mesolithic levels 21-28. C-494,

C495, and C523 appear to have been combined

to arrive at a ‘Neolithic mean’ of 8085 ± 1500

BP for level 9 (Coon, 1951:31), “a zone

containing flint blades and pottery sherds of

Neolithic Type (Libby, 1951:72).

Preliminary Analysis of Pottery from Hotu

Cave

Carleton Coon brought thousands of pottery

sherds from Hotu and Belt Caves to the

University of Pennsylvania Museum in

Philadelphia for further examination. However,

as we have noted above, Coon’s hurried

excavation methods and haphazard manner of

collecting and recording finds prevent many

aspects of this important ceramic collection

from being fully-understood.

In his preliminary report on excavations at

Belt Cave in 1949, Coon devotes three brief

paragraphs to a description of 426 pottery

fragments, focusing primarily on 174

“exceedingly primitive” soft ware sherds

recovered from levels 1-10 in Trench A and

topmost levels of Trench B (Coon, 1951:77).

Although no photographs or drawings are

provided, Coon suggests that the shapes of

vessels could be determined from the sherds:

“wide, open, flat-bottomed bowls of simple

profile, with simple rims and without spouts

lugs or handles” (Coon, 1951:78). Three of

these “roughly burnished” sherds from the

“earliest [unnamed] ceramic horizon” and a

fourth with a “well-burnished surface” from a

“later [unnamed] level” were given to Frederick

Matson for microscopic examination of the

composition of their clay fabric (Matson, 1951:

93). Matson provides a detailed account of

color, texture, mineral grain size and suspected

firing temperatures of these organic-tempered

fragments in an appendix to Coon’s 1951

report, and speculates that there may be

different clay source for the later sherd than the

earlier fragments. He also concludes that these

data are of little importance unless they are

placed in context with analysis of a much larger

number of sherds from forthcoming excavations

at Belt Cave and other sites in the region

(Matson, 1951:95). Coon subsequently

suggested the in situ evolution of soft wares

into forms resembling Sialk II (Cheshmeh Ali)

wares from the Iranian plateau in levels 32

through 45 in Trench A at Hotu Cave:

“Intermediate stages are seen when the software

acquires a burnished red surface, on which lines

are drawn; then the thinware appears, along

with the soft, and the typical geometric designs

are established” (1952:242-3).

In preparation for his 1956 survey of

archaeological sites in northern Iran, Robert H.

M. W. Gregg, C. P. Thornton Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

Dyson, Jr., was the first researcher to

intensively study the Hotu and Belt pottery

collections at the University of Pennsylvania

Museum, although his assessment was not

published until the early 1990s (Dyson, 1991;

Voigt & Dyson, 1992: 172) due to his direction

of the two-decade-long Hasanlu project. Even

then, Dyson was constrained by the unclear

nature of Coon’s excavations, and the lack of

comparable ceramics from well-chronicled and

securely-dated sites in the region, so his

conclusions were somewhat general and only

relatively dated. With the new assessment of

Coon’s work provided above, and the

significant increase in our understanding of

Neolithic sites from north-central Iran to

southern Turkmenistan, we returned to the

ceramics from Hotu and Belt for a new look at

an old collection.

The ceramic collections from Hotu and Belt

Caves are not as comparable as one might

think. Most sherds from Belt Cave are, in

general, very poorly labeled. Many are from the

“undisturbed dune” found under rockfall just

outside the entrance to Belt Cave. A small

drawing in Coon’s field notes (Fig. 1) shows

that Coon had initially assumed that the “dune”

was undisturbed with its ceramic-filled deposits

in a sealed, primary context. In his preliminary

report on the 1951 excavations at Hotu Cave,

Coon (1952:231) acknowledges that the

topmost cultural horizon at Belt is “a mixed

deposit containing Neolithic, Iron Age, Islamic

and Modern materials.” Our cursory

examination of “Dune” ceramics found every

kind of ceramic dating from the Neolithic

through Parthian periods, and is likely that the

“dune” is backdirt resulting from Islamic-period

grave-digging or early 20th century looting of

the site. A few of the sherds from Belt were

very exactly labeled, such as a software sherd

with thick pink slip and black painted cord

designs with “Belt, Strip 4, 25-45” written on

the back. Coon’s field notes offer no clue as to

what this designation means, so this unique

sherd, which is similar in some ways to the

ceramics from Rashak Cave further to the west

(Vahdati Nasab et al., in press), is of limited

diagnostic value.

Thankfully, the excavations at Hotu Cave

provide not only a deeper sequence of ceramic-

bearing levels, but the sherds from this cave are

much more carefully labeled. As discussed

above, sherds from Trench A were generally

labeled with “H” or “HA” followed by the

excavation ‘spit’ number from which the sherd

came (e.g., “HA 39”). In some cases, the

context of the sherd was not entirely clear, so

the excavators provided a range (e.g., “HA 36-

39”). In contrast, sherds from Trench B were

labeled with an “H” or “HB” followed by the

depth range of the spit (in meters or

centimeters) in which they were found (e.g.,

“HB 6.30-6.55” or “H 560-580”). In certain

A Preliminary Analysis of ... Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

cases where the context was not totally clear,

uncertainties in depth are noted by a plus sign,

such as “HB 6.60+” which should presumably

be read as “6.60m depth or higher”. Given that

Coon’s team generally excavated in 10-20cm

spits, it seems reasonable to assign such sherds

a 20-centimeter range (i.e., “HB 660+”

becomes “HB 6.40-6.60”). Based on Coon’s

unpublished drawing (Figure 7), many sherds

from Trench A can be assigned absolute depths

comparable to those in Trench B. Ceramic refits

between Trenches A and B (e.g., HA 45 and

HB 6.55-6.90, or H 38 and HB 560+)

corroborate this association.

From a stratigraphic point of view, there are

two main pottery-bearing horizons at Hotu

Cave. From the deepest ceramic-bearing levels

reached at Hotu (i.e., HA 51, presumably below

7.15 m in depth) to level 41 (ca. 6.20-6.50 m),

the assemblage is almost entirely comprised of

Neolithic ceramics. From the cave surface until

level 40 (ca. 6.05-6.20), there are ceramics from

numerous periods spanning the Neolithic to the

Early Islamic Period. This mixing undoubtedly

reflects heavy bioturbation and human

disturbances, but there is a particularly large

and well-defined assemblage of Iron Age III-

Parthian red ware ceramics from these levels

that has never been studied but is deserving of

full treatment. These early historic sherds will

not be discussed here in order to focus on the

prehistoric levels.

Dyson (1991; see also Voigt & Dyson,

1992:172) defined three prehistoric ceramic

horizons in northeastern Iran based on

typological study of the Hotu and Belt

collection as well as other published Neolithic

sites in the region (e.g., Yarim Tepe: Crawford

1963; Stronach 1972). The earliest pottery from

these sites he called “Caspian Neolithic

Software,” which he characterized as, “lightly-

fired, handmade, chaff-tempered, thick, and

crumbly with the most common form was a

deep bowl resembling a beaker, with slightly

concave sides and rounded rim” (Dyson,

1991:266). Above this horizon he noted what

he called “Djeitun” style pottery, comparable to

ceramics found in southern Turkmenistan (ca.

6000-5500 BCE) that are poorly-fired, chaff-

tempered ceramics with thick pink to buff slips

and painted with simple linear designs. The

latest of the early prehistoric ceramic levels he

defined by the presence of “Cheshmeh Ali”

wares of the Sialk II period (ca. 5300-4400

BCE), which are thin, well-fired red ceramics

with sand and thin chaff temper, bright red slips

and well-executed black painted linear and

zoomorphic designs.

Dyson’s ceramic sequence from Neolithic

Soft Ware to Djeitun Ware to Cheshmeh Ali

Ware is found stratified at the site of Sang-i

Chakhmaq near Shahrud in northeastern Iran

(Thornton, 2010), and is therefore essentially

correct for northeastern Iran as a whole.

M. W. Gregg, C. P. Thornton Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

However, it is slightly misleading when

discussing Hotu and Belt Caves, as not a single

sherd of indisputable “Djeitun” type can be

found in the University of Pennsylvania

Museum collection. While there are indeed

software sherds with thick cream to tan slips

and complex black painted decoration (HA 37-

39 sherds), the designs themselves (e.g., zigzag

chevrons) are unlike any found at the site of

Djeitun (Masson, 1957, 1972; Harris, 2010) or

at “Djeitun”-period sites in northeastern Iran.

Instead, there are more affinities to “Archaic

Zagheh” painted styles known from north-

central Iran (Majidzadeh, 1981) and recently re-

dated to the late 6th millennium BCE based on

analysis of new radiocarbon assays (Fazeli et

al., 2004).

Cheshmeh Ali ceramics are far better

attested at Hotu and Belt Caves, and found

predominately in levels HA 34-39 (ca. HB 5.0-

6.0). The spread of this pottery style from

north-central Iran to northeastern Iran and

southern Turkmenistan has been well

documented by Dyson (1991; see also Dyson

and Thornton, 2009), but admittedly based on

few well-stratified and well-dated deposits. In

north-central Iran, the technological innovations

(i.e., better kilns, sand temper, possible fast

wheel – see Wong et al., 2010; Fazeli et al.,

2010) that allow for this ceramic transition from

chaff-tempered softwares to thin, well-fired red

wares, appear around 5400-5200 BCE in the

Qazvin, Tehran, and Kashan plains (Fazeli et

al., 2005). In northeastern Iran, only a few

“Cheshmeh Ali” style sherds from Sang-i

Chakhmaq have been studied petrographically

(Thornton, in press), and it was determined that

while imports did exist, most of the ceramics of

this type appear to be made from local clays,

the only difference being the techniques

applied. The same is probably true at Hotu and

Belt Caves, where the “Cheshmeh Ali” style

sherds (most common in levels HA 34-39 or

HB 5.0-6.0) can be divided into two general

types: 1) thin, well-fired wares typical of Sialk

II sherds from north-central Iran; and 2)

"hybrid" ware that seems to mix Caspian Soft

Ware techniques (e.g., heavy burnishing; chaff

temper) with Sialk II innovations (i.e., high

firing, well-executed painted motifs).

“Caspian Neolithic Soft Ware” ceramics

with their thick and heavily-burnished red-

brown to tan slips and occasional red band on

the interior lip of the rim, as well as their

distinctive forms (deep bowls or beakers with

out-flaring rims; Fig. 9) are not found at any

other site in northern Iran. However, there are

other types of soft ware in the Early Neolithic

levels at Hotu Cave that are worth mentioning.

For instance, there are many examples of chaff-

tempered soft ware sherds with thick red-brown

to tan slips that are not heavily burnished, and

are more comparable to early Neolithic soft

wares at sites like Sang-i Chakhmaq. In

A Preliminary Analysis of ... Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

addition, there are forms beyond the typical

deep bowls and beakers, most notably a

handled cup from HA 45. These examples

suggest that our understanding of early

Neolithic ceramic styles of northern Iran

remains somewhat limited, and a more detailed

petrographic and typological study of pottery

from sites within the region is warranted.

There are three other types of pottery found

in Neolithic levels at Hotu Cave that are worth

mentioning as they are likely to be imports. The

first is a single base sherd of thin, well-fired

dark grey ware with black slip on the interior

and exterior from HB 560+. Such “Black

Burnished Ware” is well-defined by Dyson

(1991:267) and is datable to the late Sialk I

period in north-central Iran (ca. 5500-5200

BCE). The second type consists of a handful of

sherds from HA 46, HB 5.60-5.80, and HB

6.55-6.90 contexts that are thick red wares with

grey cores containing little-to-no chaff, no slip

(perhaps a thin red wash), but heavy brush

marks on the interior surface. The only

distinguishable form of this type (from HB

5.60-5.80) is the neck and shoulder of a large

jar. There are no ready parallels for this type in

Neolithic or Early Chalcolithic contexts

anywhere in northern Iran, although it is

possible that these sherds are intrusive from

later periods (e.g., Bronze or Iron Ages).

However, the notable depth of two of the sherds

(between 6.50 and 7.50 m) suggests otherwise.

The third unique ceramic type that is arguably

of Neolithic date is a small, near-complete bowl

from context HB 630+ that is poorly-fired, and

contains small bits of chaff temper but also

considerable amounts of white mica

(muscovite). The bowl has no obvious slip or

other surface treatment, other than the incised

design at the rim which consists of a rounded

triangle with vertical interior stripes. Without

suitable comparanda, it is difficult to assign this

small bowl to any particular style or time

period. However, it does appear to bear some

similarity to incised beakers recovered from

late Mesolithic and/or early Neolithic sites in

the Soimonov Bay and Bolshoi Balkhan regions

of southern Turkmenistan, including Djebel and

Dam Dam Cheshme Caves (Okladnikov 1949,

1956; Markov 1966).

Discussion

Although Coon reported an in situ evolution of

soft ware pottery forms into those resembling

Sialk II wares at Hotu Cave (1952: 242-3), he

subsequently dismissed the possibility that

pottery may have been an independent

economic innovation of the Caspian region. He

wrote: “I did not believe then, nor do I now,

that these folk were the inventors of pottery, for

what they used, though crude by later standards,

was too good to have been invented on the spot

at the time this deposit was laid down. The

technique must have evolved elsewhere” (Coon

M. W. Gregg, C. P. Thornton Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

1957:150). Our examination of archival

materials and pottery collections, and

recalculation and calibration of radiocarbon

dates outlined above, does not substantiate this

conclusion. The presence of Mesolithic

occupations containing fired and unfired clay

objects does suggest that the independent

invention of pottery on the Caspian littoral plain

cannot be precluded. Human manipulation of

clay is known from Upper Palaeolithic contexts

in Europe, Siberia, China and Japan and

incipient Neolithic communities in the foothills

of the Zagros Mountains as early as the

beginning of 9th millennium BC (Schmandt-

Besserat, 1974:11). However, the modeling and

firing of clay has not been attested at Mesolithic

or Epipalaeolithic sites in regions immediately

neighboring the Caspian Sea, nor have clear

trajectories for the adoption of pottery been

established predating its emergence at either

Hotu or Belt Caves. Furthermore, the

hybridization of Caspian Neolithic Soft Ware

and Cheshme Ali manufacturing techniques

evident in the ceramic assemblage from Hotu

Cave not only raises the possibility of adoption

of pottery forms from incoming populations

from north central Iran, but also potential

assimilation of indigenous Caspian cultural

traditions into those of agropastoral groups

originating in the Teheran Plain.

Coon realized that “much remains to be

done on this pottery” (Coon, 1951:78), and one

of us (MG) has recently extracted organic

residues surviving in 36 fired-clay and Caspian

soft ware fragments from late Mesolithic and

early Neolithic archaeological horizons at Hotu

and Belt Caves in order to obtain direct

evidence of prehistoric subsistence associated

with the earliest uses of clay in the southern

Caspian region (Gregg and Slater forthcoming-

a). Using a range of innovative extraction

methods analytical techniques (Gregg et al.,

2007; Gregg and Slater, 2010) successfully

employed in the recovery and characterization

of residues in pottery from early agricultural

settlements throughout the Middle East (Gregg

et al., 2007, 2009; Gregg, 2010a,b), the

chemical composition of ancient residues is

currently being compared to modern plant and

animal foods obtained from herders raising

flocks in different ecological niches in the

region (Gregg and Slater forthcoming-b). These

forthcoming studies will be invaluable in

addressing questions regarding the role of

ceramic technology in the nature and scale of

the adoption of agropastoralism in the eastern

regions of the Fertile Crescent, the Caucasus

and western Central Asia.

Unfortunately, we have come to the

realization that it will be quite difficult (if not

impossible) to place the data from these two

forthcoming studies within a secure

chronological and cultural framework based

solely upon Coon’s excavations at Hotu and

A Preliminary Analysis of ... Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

Belt Caves. As Coon (1957:216) laments in The

Seven Caves:

“The final report on Hotu has not yet been

written, and I am not sure that it can ever be.

Although enough of the Neolithic and Iron Age

soils have been removed to give specialists in

those periods a fair sample of cultural remains

to work with, the underlying red and black soils

have not been adequately sampled. Someone

must go back to dig out the rest of the deposit.

As I have found it by inadvertence and left most

of the analysis to others, I can say in full

modesty from my position on the sidelines that

Hotu promises to be one of the great caves in

the Middle East, just as the Caspian shore

promises to be one of the world’s great cave-

digging regions. Future discoveries in Hotu and

neighboring caves will undoubtedly bring many

new facts to light, to fill other voids in the

archaeological picture. That the books are never

closed on such a site and such a region is one of

the charms of this work.”

Final reports on Coon’s 1949 and 1951

excavations at Hotu and Belt Caves are unlikely

to ever be written.

Even if new work was undertaken at Hotu

Cave, Coon’s hurried and inconsistent

excavations methods and his lack of rigor in

collecting, documenting and labeling finds as

they were unearthed now prevents generalists

and specialists alike from obtaining a

comprehensive understanding of the

depositional sequences as they existed and

cultural contexts and transitional phases as

materials were recovered.

Nevertheless, Coon’s assessment of the

importance of the Caspian shoreline as “one of the

world’s great cave-digging regions” may very

well turn out to be correct. There are many gaps in

our current understanding of how changes in

climate affected the initial dispersal of modern

human groups in this region of the world

following the last Ice Age. Changes in vegetation

and faunal distributions associated with late

Pleistocene and early Holocene transgressions and

regressions of the Caspian Sea and the emergence

of food production in western Eurasia have yet to

be modeled. We suggest that future research

should include intensive archaeological and

geophysical survey of the hundreds of kilometers

of the former Caspian shoreline in northern Iran

and southern Turkmenistan that remain

unexplored. Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic

sites are surely there to be found. There is also

compelling need for rigorous, long-term

interdisciplinary excavation of a cave site in the

region — not only to insure that findings from the

southeastern shore of the Caspian Sea are

properly taken into account in the continuing

debate concerning core and peripheral areas of

independent economic innovation — but also to

develop a high-resolution chronology for one of

the most fascinating and transformative periods in

human history.

M. W. Gregg, C. P. Thornton Intl. J. Humanities (2012) Vol. 19 (3)

Acknowledgments

Richard Zettler (Associate Curator-In-Charge),

Katherine Blanchard (Keeper of Near Eastern

Collections); Alex Pezzati (Senior Archivist),

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,

University of Pennsylvania; Social Sciences

and Humanities Research Council of Canada;

Iran Heritage Foundation; McMaster

University.

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