Kutahi: A Pottery Neolithic Culture in the Shiraz Plain, Fars, Iran

The British Council in Shiraz was established in 1960 and Paul Bevan Gotch was appointed as its regional director until 1966. During this time, he regularly met, hosted and corresponded with archaeologists working in the Fars region. These relationships as well as the reports of the archaeological fieldworks conducted on the Fars, especially in the Kor River Basin, inspired Gotch to do some regional surveys on the Persepolis and Shiraz plains. He identified a total of six prehistoric sites on the Shiraz plain, of which the site of Kutahi was one of the most important. As Gotch mentioned this site as being ploughed and regularly bulldozed during his surveys, it is likely that it was later levelled and subsequently vanished forever due to the growth of the city of Shiraz. However, Gotch collected some sherds during his 1966 survey and also during a repeated visit in 1972. The location of the 1966 survey collection is unclear, but the 1972 collection is kept at the Narenjestan museum in Shiraz. Gotch’s notes on the Narenjestan collection show that he has separated some diagnostic sherds for reference as he was aware of the ensuing destruction of the site. This collection kept in a small box was reviewed by the author in 2016. Closer scrutiny shows that Kutahi was a local Pottery Neolithic culture dating to the first half of the sixth millennium BC