Dalma culture
[2] As stated by Akbar Abedi, an Iranian archaeologist, Dalma is one of the famous type sites located in north-western Iran.
[1] Excavated evidence indicates that this culture dispersed across central Zagros Mountains, northern Luristan, Urmia basin in Azerbaijan, and some parts of Mesopotamia such as Kirkuk.
[3] The most likely settlement pattern of Dalma people was a small group of nomads moving between villages with which they maintained their connection through kinship.
[1] These vessels must have been produced by regional ethnic groups at the household level and dispersed by the movement of nomadic tribes and their interactions with Dalma villages.
[7][12] The burials in the excavated areas propose that Dalma people were part of a sedentary and farming community with common cultural characteristics.
[12] Settlement patterns do not show signs of social hierarchy and political, economic, or religious structures existent within the Dalma society.
[13] Dalma culture originally began its existence around the Lake Urmia in north-western Iran and was then expanded into the central Zagros region.
[1] Traces of Dalma ceramics have been found in the Caucasus Mountains, and parts of eastern Iraq such as Kirkuk and Jabal Hamarein.
[1] The Chaine Magistrale (Persian: کوه سفید, Kuh-i Sefid) acted as a barrier and stopped the expansion of Dalma tradition towards the west.
[12] All of the routes for Dalma culture's development from the northwest were originated in the Lake Urmia region and intersected the Silk Road.
[7] A series of excavations done by Mahmoud Heydarian in Songhor and Koliyaei Plains of central Zagros from 2004 to 2009 uncovered Dalma potsherds in 9 archaeological sites, namely Khodaei, Sheikh-Jalil, Ab-Naz, Tepe Varz, Kalaavil, QolQole, and Nad Ali Beig.
[9] Since some of the sites are situated at higher altitudes and have colder weather conditions during winter and fall, they were probably occupied by semi-nomadic communities practicing animal husbandry.
[7] Ceramics excavated from Dalma sites were created by hand, and they were mostly made of chaff-tempered clay with small amounts of grit included.
[7][10] As stated by Akbar Abedi, Behrooz Omrani, and Azam Karimifar, Dalma was the final result of the Hajji Firuz tradition development.
[3] With the exception of changes in pottery production, no other aspects of the material culture indicate signs of a discontinuity between Dalma and the preceding Hajji Firuz tradition.
[8] Radiocarbon dating results have indicated that there must have been a transitional period of 400 years between Hajji Firuz and Dalma traditions in this region at the end of the 6th millennium B.C.
[17] Chalcolithic chaff-faced ware appeared in the South Caucasus and Upper Mesopotamia in the first half of the 5th millennium BCE.
According to Catherine Marro (2022), the systematic use of chaff, creating a Chaff-Faced Ware effect, is attested from the beginning of the 5th millennium BCE with the development of the Dalma culture.
