A. Sutherland – AncientPages.com – In and around the Zagros Mountains area to the east of the great Sumerian civilization of Mesopotamia, early humans lived since the Lower Paleolithic Period.
The earliest human fossils discovered in Zagros belongs to Neanderthals and come from Bisitun Cave, Wezmeh Cave, and Shanidar Cave, where researchers found the remains of ten Neanderthals, dating from around 65,000-35,000 years ago.
Signs of early agriculture date back as far as 9000 BC in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains. 7,000-year-old jars of wine and other agriculture-related artifacts dated to 8,000 BC confirm the beginning of agriculture in the region.
The 1300-kilometer Zagros mountain range is extending from the northwest of Iran (the border of Iran and Turkey), and it continues to the southwestern edge of Iran and Pakistan. Zagros has an ancient history of several thousand years, and empires such as the Achaemenids formed 2500 years ago in it.
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