With the currently available evidence it is still impossible to indicate the origins of the Neanderthaloids who lived in Europe and South-west Asia. It is clear that the Neanderthaloids, both the eastern variety in Iran and in other parts of South-west Asia, and the western variety (of Europe in particular), were largely derived from the preceding Caucasoids of the last interglacial; but "it is not certain whether the distinctive Neanderthal traits, both cranial and post-cranial, arose through mutation and selection alone, or were introduced into Europe and western Asia by mixture with a non-Caucasoid population".
Their subsequent fate is clearer, for they were probably absorbed into the populations of southern Europe, the Middle East, and possibly North Africa at some time during the middle of the Wurm glacial period. The Middle East Neanderthal type seems to have overflowed into Africa, for there is marked similarity among the men of Shanidar, Amud, Haua Fteah, and even Djebel Mirud in Morocco. The Neanderthaloids seem to have favoured the comparatively mild areas of western and southern Europe, and few of their remains are found in colder regions. However, some of them lived on the western slopes of the Zagros mountains in Iraq and Iran, as well as in areas to the north of the Alburz and Hindu Kush mountains in Iran, Soviet Central Asia, and Afghanistan.
In 1949 C. S. Coon excavated the cave of Bisitun, located some thirty miles east of Kirmanshah, and in it he discovered one ulna fragment and one human incisor tooth, in association with a highly developed Mousterian industry. The implements would seem to be Middle Palaeolithic flakes; thus Bisitun was evidently occupied during the Wiirm glaciation and probably during Wiirm I. No absolute dating is available since the application of the carbon-14 method was impracticable there.
During the period of occupation, the men of Bisitun became increasingly skilful craftsmen. This Middle Palaeolithic flake industry is broadly comparable with such industries in Syria, northern Iraq, and Israel, except that implements in Bisitun are more limited in number and variety. Moreover, there is in Bisitun a much higher proportion of blades than in the other areas, suggesting either that the industry here was later and so more highly evolved, or else that Bisitun was an isolated settlement where the people independently invented and modified their own variants of a widespread tool assemblage, whilst other techniques with similar tools were being invented and perfected elsewhere. The blade-users of Europe were making comparatively far more advanced tools during the Wiirm I—H interstadial period. An isolated site in Iran, "Bisitun appeared to have been off the main line of history".
Tamtamehis a cave at 5000 ft located some thirteen miles north-west of Lake Reza'iyeh, and in it a small number of flint fragments were discovered. These unworked pieces of flint had been struck off their cores as at Bisitun, suggesting that people with the same culture lived at both sites, although the Tamtameh group might have been less proficient tool-manufacturers. In this cave a fragment of a human femur was also found.
Ancient Persia: The Middle Palaeolithic Period
