Darband Cave: New Evidence for Lower Paleolithic occupation at Western Alborz Range, Gilan (In Persian)

International audienceThis paper reports on a recent discovery of a cave-site with probable Middle Pleistocene remains that seems to be the first known Lower Paleolithic cave site in Iran. Darband Cave is located on the north side of a deep canyon at southern slopes of Mount Dorfak, an extinct volcano at western Alborz. The site was discovered by V. Jahani in 2005, and revisited by Biglari, Jahani and Shidrang in 2006 who collected a sizeable number of faunal remains and 25 stone artifacts from disturbed deposit along the western wall of the cave.Flakes makeup the majority of the artefacts which mostly show some retouch that would allow us to classify them as marginal retouched flakes, scrapers, notched, awls, and end-scrapers. The collection also includes one core (core-chopper), some unretouched flakes, flake fragments, and debris. The faunal assemblage from the cave is dominated by cave bears, with a few ungulate remains. From the preliminary observations and considering the limited number of the bones it is possible to allocate these remains to Spelarctos deningeri. Remains of cave bears are absent at Palaeolithic cave-sites in the Zagros region and elsewhere in Iran; Draband Cave therefore represents the first evidence for this taxon from Iran. The presence of this carnivore at Darband Cave seems to be the farthest extension of the Caucasian population of Pleistocene cave bears to the southeast