Tepe Yahya is an archaeological site in Kermān Province, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, some 220 km south of Kerman

Kerman

- Geological characteristics :For the Iranian paleontologists, Kerman has always been considered a fossil paradise. Finding new dinosaur footprints in 2005 has now revealed new hopes for paleontologists to better understand the history of this area.- Economy :...

 city, 90 km south of Baft

Baft

Baft is a city in and the capital of Baft County, Kerman Province, Iran. Baft is located southwest of Kerman. At the 2006 census, its population was 35,008, in 8,265 families....

 city and 90 km south-west of Jiroft

Jiroft

Jiroft is a city in and the capital of Jiroft County, Kerman Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 95,031, in 19,926 families. It is located south of the city of Kerman, and south of Tehran along Road 91...

.

History

Habitation spans the 6th to 2nd millennia BCE and the 10th to 4th centuries BCE.
In the 3rd millennium BCE, the city was a production center of chlorite

Chlorite

The chlorite ion is ClO2−. A chlorite is a compound that contains this group,with chlorine in oxidation state +3. Chlorites are also known as salts of chlorous acid.-Oxidation states:...

 pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

 which were exported to Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

. In this period, the area was under Elam

Elam

Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Elam was centered in the far west and the southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province, as well as a small part of southern Iraq...

ite influence, and tablets with Proto-Elamite

Proto-Elamite

The Proto-Elamite period is the time of ca. 3200 BC to 2700 BC when Susa, the later capital of the Elamites, began to receive influence from the cultures of the Iranian plateau. In archaeological terms this corresponds to the late Banesh period...

 inscriptions were found.

Archaeology

The site is a circular mound, around 20 meters in height
and around 187 meters in diameter.

It was excavated in six seasons from 1967 to 1975 by the American School of Prehistoric Research of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, and is particularly strong in New World ethnography and...

 of Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in a joint operation with what is now the Shiraz University

Shiraz University

Shiraz University , formerly known as Pahlavi University, is a public university located in Shiraz, Iran. It is one of the major universities of Iran....

. The expedition
was under the direction of C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky.

Periodization is as follows:

VII: 5500-4500 BCE

VI-Vc: 4500-3600 BCE

Vb-a: 3600-3200 BCE

IVc: 3100-2800 BCE

IVb: 2400-2000 BCE

IVa: 1800-1400 BCE

III: 800-500 BCE

II: 500-275 BCE

I: 200 BCE - 300

See also

• Shahr-i Sokhta
  Shahr-i Sokhta
  Shahr-e Sūkhté , also spelled as Shahr-e Sukhteh and Shahr-i Shōkhta, is an archaeological site of a sizable Bronze Age urban settlement, associated with the Jiroft culture. It is located in Sistan and Baluchistan Province, the southeastern part of Iran, on the bank of the Helmand River, near the...
  
  
• Jiroft culture
• Marhasi
  Marhasi
  Marhaši was a 3rd millennium BC polity situated east of Elam, on the Iranian plateau. It is known from Mesopotamian sources, and its precise location has not been identified...
  
  
• Cities of the Ancient Near East
  Cities of the ancient Near East
  The largest cities in the Bronze Age ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands. Memphis in the Early Bronze Age with some 30,000 inhabitants was the largest city of the time by far...