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Yazdani Sangari A, Dehpahlavan M. Examining the animal and human remains from the Eastern Graveyard at Gareh Tepe of Sagzabad (Iron Age II, III) using a Taphonomic perspective. JRA 2024; 10 (1) :33-50
URL: http://jra-tabriziau.ir/article-1-403-en.html

The Eastern Cemetery of Qara Tepe Sagzabad, located in the Qazvin Plain, is one of the substantial Iron Age II and III sites in the Central Plateau of Iran. Due to its unique geographical location, it has long attracted the attention of archaeologists. From 2017 to 2021, this cemetery was excavated as part of an educational-research project by the Department of Archaeology the University of Tehran. The excavations revealed significant evidence and information from the late Iron Age and early Median and Achaemenid periods. One of the notable features of this cemetery is the multi-layered cist burial structure. In the trench 12, five burial layers were identified. One of the fundamental questions about this cemetery led to this research: "Why is this cemetery and its graves in a state of disarray and confusion with scattered materials and bone remains?" Why one grave is so intact that even a single finger bone remains undisturbed, while the adjacent grave is significantly disordered and chaotic? Were these factors internal or external to the cemetery? Thus, the primary objective of this research was to address these questions. We sought to identify the causes of this disorder using Taphonomy. Several factors that significantly altered this cemetery's state were identified through interdisciplinary approaches. Research and experiments indicated that natural factors such as floods, earthquakes, animal and plant activities, and chemical reactions of buried materials, along with human factors such as secondary burials and agricultural activities, contributed to the changes in the cemetery and its remains. This research demonstrates that taphonomic analysis can better understand post-mortem processes and the environmental and human impacts on bone remains (both human and animal).