Ali Kosh and Ganj Dareh: early herding and clay vessels in Iran

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

What the source says

The Met's timeline for Iran, 8000-2000 BCE, opens its list of key events with two entries. The first, about 8000 BCE: "The earliest domestication of sheep and goats occurs at Ali Kosh in southwestern Iran." The second, about the 8th millennium BCE: at Ganj Dareh in western Iran, "the earliest known clay vessels" and modelled human and animal terracotta figurines are produced. Source 1.

Two sites, two kinds of evidence

The two entries do not tell the same story. On the timeline Ali Kosh stands for a change in people's relation to animals, and Ganj Dareh for a craft in clay: vessels and figures. The overview on the same page adds a wider context: beginning in the eighth millennium BCE, agricultural communities form in western Iran, and "it is not clear" whether they represent an indigenous development or the result of outside influences. The source leaves the question open, and so does this article. Source 1.

The dating and its place on the site

The two dates differ in kind. "ca. 8000 B.C." is an approximate point; "ca. 8th millennium B.C." is a span of a thousand years. On the same timeline the Pre-Pottery Neolithic is dated about 8000-7500 BCE and the Pottery Neolithic about 7500-5000 BCE: Ali Kosh stands at the opening of the first, while the 8th millennium of Ganj Dareh straddles the boundary between them, and the source does not say on which side of it the vessels fall. The article is therefore placed on the page for the Neolithic in Iran as a whole, which on this site holds both phases. Source 1.

What can and cannot be said

"Earliest" and "earliest known" are the timeline's own words, on a page whose citation is dated October 2000; they describe what its authors knew, not a ranking this site has checked. The page does not say on the basis of which finds the domestication at Ali Kosh was identified, how many vessels were found at Ganj Dareh or in which levels, and it does not mention the Zagros in these entries: it locates the sites only as "southwestern Iran" and "western Iran". Source 1.

Scope of reading: the Met timeline page "Iran, 8000-2000 B.C." (key events, period list and overview) was read on 24 October 2026. The excavation reports of Ali Kosh and Ganj Dareh were not read, so this page gives no levels, radiocarbon dates, measurements or find lists.