Ahead of Their Time

Features March/April 2025

Excavations reveal the surprising sophistication of Copper Age villagers in southwestern Iran 6,000 years ago
Zohreh Prehistoric Project Archive
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A cache of 73 stone steles was unearthed beneath a temple at the site of Chega Sofla, a settlement in southwestern Iran dating to around 6,000 years ago, during the Copper Age.

As his team unearthed a cache of 73 stone steles buried in a mound in southwestern Iran, archaeologist Abbas Moghaddam of the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research added yet one more question to his growing list about the people who lived at the ancient settlement of Chega Sofla some 6,000 years ago. Since he star

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