TEHRAN -- Archaeologists Susan Pollock and Reinhard Bernbeck from Binghamton University in New York state are planning to collaborate with a team of Iranian experts on the chronology of Tall-e Bashi in southern Iran’s Fars Province.

Located on the Marvdasht Plain, 40 kilometers northwest of Persepolis, Tall-e Bashi is a four-meter tepe containing the remains of prehistoric settlements dating from the Mushki period (5500 BC) until the Bakun period (late 5th to early 4th millennium BC).

Tall-e Bashi was first identified in the survey undertaken by the foreign archaeologist Vanden Berghe (1954), and excavations were carried out by Paul Gotch (1968, 1969) and William M. Sumner (1972).

“The exact archaeological chronology of Fars Province has not yet been determined and previous studies have come up with varying hypotheses,” Iranian team director Kamyar Abdi told the Persian service of CHN on Wednesday.

“The present chronology of the prehistoric sites of Fars Province has identified remains from the Mushki, Jari, and Bakun periods. The Bashi period comes between the Mushki and Jari periods,” he added.

Almost eight hectares in size, Tall-e Bashi was assumed to be one of the region’s major Bakun period sites.

The investigation of the chronology of these sites will be carried out using two methods, Abdi noted.

“Relative dating, which entails a series of archaeological excavations, and absolute dating, in which carbon-14 dating experiments are carried out on items found during the excavations,” he explained.

“Unfortunately we know nothing about the Bakun period people. We are hoping to find one of their residential areas at a relatively high level of the tepe during a horizontal excavation,” he added.

The team plans to separate any bones, stones, and shards that are found by sifting the dug soil with a sieve with one-millimeter holes.

They also plan to pan the soil to separate remains of light plants for archaeobotanical studies.

Bernbeck previously participated in excavations at the Tall-e Bashi site in May and June 2003.

The excavations were scheduled to begin in early May, but Pollock and Bernbeck have had to postpone their trip to Iran because of a bureaucratic delay caused by the Iranian Foreign Ministry. MMS/MA END MNA